High stakes

Who: Jakob and Sam
Where: Police HQ, then under the Sixth Street Bridge
When: late morning

Jakob was good at pretending, of course. He was patient, by and large, could look ashamed or bewildered or even angry when he felt none of them. The outcome of the raid had actually been surprising to him, too, but what came after? Not so much. The commissioner hadn't been removed from power yet, which meant the initial reaction among top police brass had been a clusterfuck, but he'd expected that. He'd expected the screaming lecture he received in his captain's office minutes earlier, feigning ignorance all through it and advising caution when any mention of Sam was made. After all, someone in the station other than him had to know about her family, and the last way the DiGiovanni would want themselves avenged was by the errant punishing of another member.

Danny was too high-profile of a target right now, too, a verifiable Hero Cop for at least as long as he was injured and in the papers, and Jakob himself? He was a ghost in the matter, undocumented on warrants and duty rosters. So of course the lecture he'd been given was mostly made up of reprimands for missing his partner organizing such an effort, and a faux-sincere promise from him to keep it from happening again. All told, almost every piece of what had happened was entirely predictable, given that he'd laid the frame of it himself. Two things weren't: the mystery shooter, and Sam herself. How would his partner react to it all? He imagined, as he descended from the captain's office back to the main station floor, that she would feel regret. And he couldn't tell her not to, not even if Jakob had expected far more officers to die... but for the unknown shooter. It was a puzzle, and he wanted pieces, which meant he needed to find Sam Tyler.

Sam was sitting at her desk with a full, cold mug of coffee sitting in front of her beside the stack of paperwork she was still working through. She hadn't been yelled at yet, but she was expecting it. She was expecting the absolute worse: her badge taken away and run out of the department forever. Back to the house where she belonged. There had been no phonecalls from her family, not even from her mother. She hadn't heard anything from Jakob yet, but from what she saw, he was currently in with the brass.

She looked terrible. She had been too exhausted to cover up the fading remnants of the black eye, let alone the dark circles under her eyes from the fact that she had barely slept since the raid. Sam didn't do hospitals. She didn't do doctors, so she hadn't done anything yet for the guy who more than likely saved her miserable excuse of a hide.

What was worse, was the treatment she was getting. It was worse than just being stared at. Everyone was ignoring her. For the first time, she was being ignored. Shunned. She'd gotten cops killed. Her days were numbered, she knew it.

Moving across the station floor, Jakob detoured for a cup of his own and lingered as he was handed a file on a John Doe found near the Sixth Street bridge, flipping it open to peruse the top page as he moved to the pair of desks he and Sam shared. There was no mystery in the file; just another transient, this one dead from asphyxiation, and Jakob was willing to bet the killer could be any of the other faceless bums around town. Clearing his throat as he reached the desks, Jakob closed the file and dropped it with the others in his active cases, settling in across from Sam.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, just watching his partner's expression carefully, noting the strain and shadows, the wan look. "Tyler," he greeted, "You're not going to have to see the captain, he told me as much. Perhaps a bit of sleep is in order."

"I've got work to do," she said tonelessly, not looking up when he sat down and was still staring at the file in front of her, jotting down information where it was needed, finishing off the file and grabbing another. "I think they'd like me to finish off my open files before sacking me." It was snappy, despite the tonelessness, showing the nervousness and frustration she had. Sam couldn't really look at Jakob in that moment, an angry voice inside of her demanding to know exactly where Jakob had been last night, how convenient it was that he wasn't in on the very raid he'd organized. The raid where a few of their own had died.

"Before what?" Jakob asked, openly scoffing, "Are you--" He bit his tongue, every inch the concerned, shocked partner as he leaned on his desk. "Sam... you're not going anywhere. Do you really think they can fire you? After what you've done?" It was nearly impossible, despite Sam's lingering fears. Her family wouldn't allow it, Jakob wouldn't allow it... Reaching to the stack of files nearby, he snagged the John Doe he'd been given, sipping coffee and reaching out to tap the edge under Sam's field of vision. "We've got a scene to walk," he insisted quietly, "Paperwork can wait."

Sam opened her mouth to protest, but she stopped halfway and closed it, nodding instead. "Sure." She ran a distracted hand through her hair and grabbed her car keys from the drawer. "Is this the file?" Sam nodded to the file that Jakob had set down earlier. Something else to focus on would be nice.

She wasn't in luck, if she wanted something to focus on. The 'scene'? It was Jakob's homeless corpse found under the bridge, and it was a mere pretense for a chance to talk with Sam unobserved. "I have the file," he corrected neatly, shaking his head and rising from his desk, "It's a short read, you won't need long to be brought up to speed."

Sam nodded, pulling on her dark trench coat, and picking up her cold cup of coffee and taking a sip of it. She grimaced but kept drinking it anyway. "I'll drive," she said needlessly.

All she got in reply was a nod from Jakob before he moved for where his coat hung, stopping at the clerk's desk for just a moment before he left the station behind entirely. It was easy enough to seem the wary partner, given that he genuinely did want to avoid scrutiny so his name would stay away from the situation. Commendations be damned, after all; either of his extra employers would probably kill him for this. Moving for Sam's car, Jakob lingered by the passenger door with an expression that was wholly apologetic. "We're headed to the bridge, the underpass specifically."

She nodded again, getting in the car and unlocking the door for him. Her hands flexed on the steering wheel for a moment after starting the car, then pulled out, heading the few blocks to the Sixth Street Bridge and the underpass. "So what's happened?" she asked. Such a loaded question that could mean a multitude of things, considering, instead of only why they were going to the bridge.

"We cannot trust our superiors, that's what has happened," Jakob answered quietly once he'd climbed into the car. He took a long moment to watch the city roll by silently, leaning his head against the glass of the window. "The captain told me, between expletives, to keep you on a tighter leash. He said quite plainly that there was a mountain of things to correct now, but the way he said it? I think he may have blocked this raid from even happening, Sam." Jakob turned to her as she drove, watching her expression carefully for any reaction his words might have. "Someone's been tailing me, studying my paper trail, since at least a few days before I came to you and McKinnon," he went on, frowning after a moment, "Is Danny okay? All things considered, of course?"

"I don't know," Sam said quietly, stopping at a stop light and leaning back in her seat for the moment. "He should be out of the hospital today, I was going to stop by and see how he was doing. I don't do hospitals." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, accelerating again. "I find it interesting that I'm taking the fall for something you planned," she said quietly.

It was good to know that that was how she viewed it, Jakob had wanted to credit her with that degree of wits. She'd never just blindly trusted him, not like Danny had when they'd chased the serial killer and Jakob had proposed a tiny little lie. "Sam, I..." he trailed, playing a sort of stunned silence for a moment, "I am sorry for what happened, more than I can say. If I could change it, plan better, recruit more men? I would hand over my badge for the chance. If I could have been there, I would trade places with McKinnon gladly, but there are events in motion that I needed to contend with, and there are aspects of what we're doing that I wish only to keep you safe from."

Sam didn't answer, not a proper verbal one anyway, just a small, thoughtful sound, staring out at the asphalt in front of her car. Her hands, pale and scratched, flexed on the steering wheel as she took a turn. Liar, she wanted to say. Sure, there was something to be said for being in on the action, but Jakob was obviously very much someone who preferred to organize situations and only 'get his hands dirty' if he absolutely needed to. It was startlingly clear as this situation unfolded. "Your plan to keep me safe involves tossing me into a raid on a couple of warehouses?" she finally asked with a little smirk on her face, that old Sam light coming back into her eyes, because when you put it that way, it was a morbidly funny. To an extent anyway. "Why, Jakob, darling, I didn't know you cared so much."

"It involves keeping you out of the commissioner's overview, at least as far as my own efforts. Not to mention the view of whoever he's working for," Jakob corrected without any humor on his own face, "I trusted you to be capable enough to survive any trouble the local gangs might offer, and I was correct in that assumption. But exposing you to excess scrutiny of this nature?" He tsked softly, shaking his head. "I am fairly certain that our 'beloved' commissioner will be dealt with soon enough through other channels, and once he is, we can all breathe easier."

"Until his replacement comes along," Sam quietly reminded him. She didn't really know all of Jakob's plan except that it was meant to bring down the commissioner and now he wanted to keep her out of it. It was confusing and a good puzzle, but Sam was too exhausted to try figure it all out at the moment. "This the place?" she asked. There was some tape up, marking off part of the area but other than that, it really wasn't the normal crime scene and, Sam suspected, the tape had been put up just for them.

"It is," Jakob told her with a nod, sitting back patiently as he waited on Sam, "And whether his replacement is crooked or not, there will hopefully be a bit more... tact in any future dealings they may have. Certain people around town have taken offense." He was sure there'd be a long list if Jakob dug deep enough, but when the first name was Eris Stockard? Not much more needed to be dug up. "And we won't find much here, the file is just another transient," he added as she parked, "But I felt that I owed you a chance for some honest talk, and a great deal more if you choose to claim it."

"With some people, you never have enough tact," Sam said with a shrug, turning the car off. Transients were a commonality in their work. Easy prey tom whomever might very well be in a bad mood. "Honest talk?" She looked at him levelly, turning slightly in her seat to look at him. "Is there something you feel you need to be honest about with me?" There wasn't any kind of challenge or skepticism in her voice, nothing giving away her curiosities to the fact that he didn't happen to be at the raid that ended up in a bunch of cops dead. Sam sounded perfectly conversation and somewhat curious as to his meaning.

Shaking his head, Jakob turned as well, settling into his seat in the car for the moment. "Nothing specific, no, but given how the raid went and how our fellows at the station are closing rank while we wait for any fallout, I thought the chance couldn't be wasted," he said thoughtfully, fixing a solemn expression on Sam, "And I'm sorry. Yes, we knew it would be dangerous, yes we had some measure of warning, but neither of those facts forgives what happened." For anyone else, the end result of the raid would've been a problem, a sign of sloppy planning. For Jakob, he'd actually been surprised that the casualties among the cops were as slim as they were. "I should have been there with you and the others, and if it weren't for this mystery shooter? Well... I wouldn't handle it well if any harm befell you, Sam," Jakob confessed, his words sincere, "I've grown quite used to having you as my partner, it would be jarring to suddenly have both desks to myself again."

"McKinnon took a bullet for me," she found herself saying slowly, in that detached manner that she had when she was freaked out, that she'd only spoken in once before. "I watched... a bunch of people get shot. And a warehouse exploded." It was all traumatizing, really, and to top it off, Sam was still concerned that if she wasn't going to get fired, that she was going to get run off the job. "I almost got shot. I was in a shootout. I could've gotten blown up." Sam frowned, staring at a point on the dashboard as if she were having a conversation with it and not Jakob.

"And while those things aren't usually considered when any of us signs up for the academy," Jakob said gently, taking the thread of her talk, "They are risks we need to face in pursuit of our job. I was shot by a serial murderer, Sam. I've seen officers stabbed, shot, found dead days after they were reported missing. It never gets any easier, but it is what we must do." He reached inside his coat, slipping his badge free and letting it rest in the palm of his hand. "Our badges are shaped like shields, yes? As a reminder of a time when we were guards, the only line of defense these people had... the shield has shrunk, but our jobs? Not so much. What you and the others did was more than anyone would ask, Sam. You served and protected. The warehouse that blew was full of munitions, what do you think would have been done with them? Or the counterfeit bills we recovered from the Lotus?"

She shrugged, looking out the dash at the sorry excuse for a crime scene. "I know." Because she did. She rationally knew that. Knew that what they did down there was a good thing, but it still didn't mean that the experience was magically going to go away. "And it's good to know that this made a difference, but sometimes you gotta wonder exactly what kind of difference that is." Sam ran a hand through her hair and looked back at him. "Is there really any point for the two of us to be looking at this?" she asked, referring to the scene. It seemed like overkill.

It would've been in any honest moment, but for Jakob it was a tangential sort of foundation to build on. "Indirectly, yes," he said as he looked out across the overpass, "I'm interested in a chance to talk with the local color without drawing more attention than necessary. Blame was laid on transients, of course, I'd like an opposing statement." He knew he needed something for them both to focus on, and the cover-up of Mrs. Hardy's death, which Jakob was personally responsible for, was the perfect sort of little mystery.

Local color. That got a smile out of Sam. It was a small one, but it was there. "Local color. That's so cute," she teased him with a shake of her head. "Alright then. We'll go talk to the 'local color' and see where that goes." She paused, the smile faltering a bit. "Do you play poker by any chance?"

"Like I invented it, why do you ask?" Jakob responded, smiling a little in kind for Sam. Did she want to gambling? Maybe see her kin up at the Drake? "Whatever the reason, yes. I'm fairly good at several card games," he confirmed as he started away from the car, which sounded a little smug? But it was jakob's own warped version of modesty. He wasn't just good, and it wasn't just at cards. Dice, dominoes, cards, riddles... he was the best at all of them.

Like he'd invented it. Sam suppressed a laugh, following him to the scene. Where had she heard that? Oh, from everyone in her family. "Oh, just curious if you'd ever done anything... high stakes." She fell in step beside him, hands shoved in her pockets.

Walking with her under the overpass of the bridge, Jakob grinned as they lost the sun. "Never more than I know I can handle," he answered, "Though I will confess, I don't often report my winnings. What I do that the city refuses to pay for, they have no claim to. And I enjoy a measure of comfort; losing the average man's preoccupation and worry over money makes dealing with our work much easier." Most of that was true; Jakob didn't have much need of the money he'd stashed around town, and he did like a comfortable life. The lie was that he watched his stakes, that zeal was how he'd gone dirty the first time as a patrolman, likely when Sam's grandfather or great uncle oversaw the Drake. "I'm sure your relatives could attest to that," he added knowingly.

Actually, they couldn't, because it had never been mentioned to her, but finding that Jakob quite liked gambling wasn't incredibly surprising to Sam. People as smart as him, who liked figuring things out (like her) would naturally gravitate towards games of chance. "And how much do you think you can handle?"

"You would be surprised," Jakob answered with a dry chuckle. His gaze was darting around as he walked, flitting from transient to transient in seeming scrutiny as Jakob considered just what to say. He wasn't looking for their John Doe's killer, and instead sought out any glimpses of the jewelry he'd stolen from the Hardy household. Likely it was all pawned off by now, but if not? It'd be good to note and use later. "A bit of patience allowed me to stretch a patrolman's wage into one I could live on, and my apartment? Well, the deed was part of the highest-staked game I've ever played," he confided, grinning to Sam, "That particular night? The prices were higher than I could afford. But when you're sitting on a hand of three kings and the fourth surfaces in the river..."

Sam watched Jakob as he looked around. For what, she had no idea, but she walked beside him anyway, pulling her coat around her a little tighter as the breeze snaked through. She'd been in crappy places on her patrols but it didn't mean she liked them very much. The gun on her hip was certainly a comfort. "Lucky night," she said. "I certainly hope you were following the rules." Sam tossed in a teasing smirk. "We should play sometime. If you're up for what the stakes can hold anyway." What was she doing anyway? Had her father been there, he'd quite possibly be furious, but the idea had certainly been in the back of her mind for awhile.

Really, if he'd tried? Jakob could've pinned the murder on someone, and even had good odds of picking the right one. There were things to look for among the squats of the homeless, key among them the size of each hovel or heap. Down here there was a strange equality, so a larger pile would be a bit of insight about one of the bums laying claim to his victim's hoard. But Jakob didn't actually care about these people, this was just a chance to talk with his partner and reassess his ties with her. "And what stakes might those be?" he asked wryly, flashing the badge under his coat at a pair of men who were leering in their (or probably Sam's) direction, "Not that I'd balk, mind you, I just know better than to blindly agree. I could lose a hand and be filing your case reports for the next month."

"You mean me be primary and you be my sidekick? I like that." She watched the pair back off and Jakob and Sam kept walking. "It all depends on the roll of the dice that night. Cars. Houses. Wives. Contracts. Nothing illegal, of course. Not to worry your pretty little head about that. Those aren't on the table either." Sam shoved her hands in her pockets, eyeing a few of the bums that were huddled together and they looked away, shuffling further back into the shadows.

"And here I was, hoping to gamble away both of my wives," Jakob joked as he stopped, looked around the underpass, and shook his head as if he was giving up. "Everything here checks out with the report that was passed to us, we're clear to confirm," he said neatly, turning to look back the way they'd come from. "And if I didn't already have a pair of tickets for tonight's gala, I'd suggest you bring some popcorn over and we could play. Another night? Perhaps when McKinnon's been discharged, even? I know of a few officers who play regularly."

Sam nodded, feeling even more like this trip out was a waste of time but she didn't say anything. Jakob was still senior officer and, even if it had felt like longer, she was still the rookie detective who had only been in homicide for a week. "The gala, huh? Hot date tonight?" The gala... was she supposed to go to that? She hadn't checked her mail in a couple days. She should probably do that.

He laughed softly, shaking his head again and starting back towards the car. "I am a far cry from an eligible or inviting bachelor, Sam," Jakob pointed out, "I spend my days with corpses, none of whom I've considered asking to the event. Rather, I just enjoy buying two tickets to these events and seeing if I can convince someone to go with me at the last minute. Failing that, a tale of being stood up by your date always nets you a dance partner and a free drink." Glancing sideways at her, Jakob had to grin playfully for just a moment. "So... would you like to be my tale of woe, or my escort for the evening? In a purely non-romantic sense, of course."

That caught Sam by surprise and she raised her eyebrows at him. Wow. It had been a really long time since someone asked her to a gala, purely non-romantic sense or not. "You sure like gambling, don't you?" she asked. "Sure, why not. Someone needs to be there to keep you in line. I saw you with Maya Walker last time." She wagged her finger at him with a stern face.

"She is a widow, mind you," Jakob was quick to point out, "It's not as though I needed to fear reprisal from a jealous husband. And with the shape of my shoulder at the time? Dancing was the farthest I could cross the line." He'd enjoyed himself, though: Maya Walker was an exquisite specimen in Jakob's eyes. Devious, beautiful, so involved in the city that he wasn't even sure where her influence could reach. If he was looking for romance? She would've topped his list. "However, I won't protest the idea. My luck may sour and I may end up dancing with a woman who is yet to be widowed," he mused with a smirk, "And then? I would definitely need back-up."

"Ah, so you need me to play bodyguard so you don't get snapped." Sam tossed him a teasing grin. "Man, I remember when she got married." That pink dress had been uncomfortable and the church had been incredibly stuffy. "Alright. I'm in. And if I end up having to defend you, you can be the one to explain it to my mother." If Marcelina was still talking to her. That? Sam wasn't so sure about. The two of them reached the car and Sam pulled out her car keys. "Is there anything else we need to do?"

"You attended her wedding? That will teach me to skip the society pages of the Echo," he said with a smirk, "And no, I believe we're done here. Fresh air is a welcome break despite the local aromas. Do you feel like lunch?" It was a safer question, a chance to skip the mention of her mother, and Jakob welcomed that. Even if he hadn't had many direct dealings with the Giacomos, this was Sam's family, and that would make spinning any tales about his knowledge of them a tricky thing indeed.

"God, I was fourteen when she got married? Thirteen?" Sam shook her head and opened her door. "Lunch sounds good. You can pick the place. I know Nighthawk's can get boring for some." She shot him a grin before ducking into the car.

Jakob followed after, pleased that he'd seemingly bolstered her spirits or maybe faith in him. "Only if the company is dull," he countered as they left the underpass behind. Lucky for her, Jakob knew things were never boring with him around.