Sally's Story (1.5-5): In a World Gone Mad

youtu.be/noOp-MKTQqM

	“Mister Banaszewski,” Sally started. Better not to start off on the wrong foot by mispronouncing his name, she reasoned, taking a seat in the close little booth besides Vincent. “Please.”
	“What seems to be the matter,” he started, plopping down on the plush leather seats. “It’s not often the police are visiting this part of the city.”
	“We’re investigating a narcotics crime, Mister-”
	“Banaszewski,” Sally whispered.
	“Banaszewski. We believe an employee of yours was distributing a large amount of-”
	“If you’re talking about Brian like Marta said,” he interrupted, face souring, “I want none of it. Brian’s been good to me, he’s a hard worker and I know he doesn’t do that. Clearly you’re mistaken.”
	“Sir, with all due respect-”
	“I don’t want a robot to lecture me on respect, God dammit!” He slammed the glossy wooden table between them. “I don’t even know why I’d dignify this with a response, this *dis*respect for my employees and my business. I do not employ criminals!”
	“Mister Banaszewski,” Vince continued, “I understand it can be difficult to hear news like this. What matters is not your feelings on Brian, but your feelings on the law, *on justice*.” Vince was going in for the hard sell now, gesturing around the open establishment like it was some grand exhibit. “What you have here is hard work codified, yes? I assume you’re not the founder.”
	“No, that would be-”
	“Your father.” Vince had done his research while Sally was still in that room. He couldn’t be arsed to learn the pronunciations but the names locked themselves in his head, dates carefully peppered in his speech regarding the grandiose property they were sitting on. “A hard working man, like yourself- like your daughter.” The man narrowed his bushy eyes, licked his lips.
	“You have a way with words, certainly,” he nodded. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Brian is innocent of whatever you’ve accused him of.” Vince sighed, clearly stroking some sense of family pride wouldn’t do anything, and asking about the decoration would be pandering- a cop cardinal sin. Pandering was a surrender of authority, of influence, saying you weren’t the law anymore- you were a *tourist*. Vince blinked. The man, thick and heavy from years managing the place, clearly cared about it and his family’s history, the two were intricately intertwined. His daughter, dark haired and smiling, was a soft spot in that heavy, binding chain. Vince turned his head, Sally inevitably connecting the dots as well- better she speak, put him off-balance. The detective gently turned his head a fraction of a degree.
	“Sir, how old is your daughter?”
	“The hell is it to you?” He leaned forward, arms folding as he crossed the table. Focusing on the robot he eyed her up and down, the short crop of her hair where it parted at her forehead and down, down to the pristine pantsuit beneath it. “What would a f*cking robot know or care, huh?”
	“Well, sir, what if your daughter were to end up in the hospital.”
	“You’re not listening, hm? I don’t *care* how old you think my daughter is, why do you-”
	“Seventeen, Mister Banaszewski,” Sally clipped. The wan, polite small was gone from her face, cheeks muted and dark as she continued. “We have a victim of an overdose who was seventeen. Regardless of your feelings on Brian or any other employees, we just want to know about his past and his work. The circumstances surrounding that girl, in the hospital mind you, are not pertinent. But imagine if they were, if they were closer to home.” Marta was hopping around the other side of the floor, cleaning windows and scribbling on a decrepit, worn checklist. Opening time *proper* would be soon, the handful of help would be showing up, and she’d need to skip to it to help them. The man sighed, hand grabbing his jaw for reason. He wasn’t gonna take this from a robot, but if what she was implying was true he couldn’t just let the matter drop.
	“So,” he said, turning to Vince. “How true is this?”
	“Very. A young woman was hospitalized this morning after ingesting a large quantity of narcotics-”
	“And you’re saying Brian *sold* her those?”
	“Correct.” He grumbled again, a little crack in the boy’s godly facade. “Was he alone, selling them alone?”
	“That would be what we’re trying to figure right now, and it would help to know what he did around here, how long ago-”
	“He did bottlings, and he delivered, too.”
	“You do deliveries?”
	“Selectively, but yes. We make krupnik, too,” he smiled, the honey liqueur a popular take-home product. “And he would be in the back bottling it, and hopping on the scooter to drive it places.”
	“Just that then?”
	“Yes, largely, but he was good at it, and he was a good worker.” Vincent nodded, Sally taking more notes under the watchful eye of the middle aged man.
	“I understand it can be difficult for the police to waltz in and accuse someone close to you of these kinds of things, and then come to you for questioning.” Vince shook his head, trying to sympathize with the man’s situation. “But if we can, could we-”
	“Would you like to look around?”
	“If we could, that would be much appreciated.”
	“I don’t like flip-flopping,” he sighed, “Brian was good. But if what you tell me is true, I can’t abide by it in my home, my business. My city.” He thumped his chest lightly before escorting the two to the concrete backrooms, dense steel shelves clustering them in, bulk-bought spirits and honey and more brewing and stewing together before they were to be siphoned away, bottled, labeled and sent off or sold in-store.
	“Anything special about your equipment we should know?”
	“No, no- the bottling equipment is fully downstairs though- we’re smalltime so it is by hand.” He sniffed, thumbing his pockets. “That is all really but, er, be… responsible down there.”
	“Will do.”

	The two stalked down the wooden staircase into the building’s basement, flat concrete floors and pillars holding the ground floor aloft. Around the space were the typical furnishings of any home’s furnace room, a boiler and water heater for the winters, the odd bauble and bit of memorabilia waiting to be hung the next floor up, and a broken frame or two looking for repairs. That, and a singular hand-pressed bottling machine. Upstairs several dozen cardboard boxes held what they were waiting for, blank bottles and un-stickied labels sitting idle.
	“So,” Sally mumbled, flexing the handle and watching the machine piston down. “How big *is* this?”
	“I couldn’t tell you Sal. Guy upstairs is giving us the run around and unless we could prove to him that our guy was running drugs the same time he was working here, well…”
	“We’re not gonna get anywhere.”
	“Bingo. Uh- careful with that, alright?”
	“Hm?” She picked her head up from the tottering up and down of the machine, metal jaws waiting for a bottle and a cap to smash together. “Oh! Right.” She pulled a hand away, letting the spring-loaded handle swing up with a clap.
	“Any hunches?”
	“Mmm…,” she mulled, “no. Sadly not. Oh!”
	“What’s up?” Vince picked his head up from a piece of second world war militaria, Sally flipping through her notes.
	“Well, if we *could* convince him, beyond a doubt, that something is the matter here… we could maybe see if he has ledgers for deliveries, addresses, *individuals* who may know more about Brian.”
	“Better yet, were *working* with him. Imagine if he’s bringing those bottles of liquor around the dockside, maybe a warehouse somewhere there we could pry into, yeah?
	“Yeah,” Sally smiled, turning back to the machine as she sketched it together. “Say Vince, one more thing.” The detective sauntered over to the little press, eyes locking with the spot where Sally had her own glued.
	“What’s up?”
	“You see that?”
	“What?”
	“*That*,” she pointed, a little, barely noticeable ring circling the metal bottom plate of the machine. “It’s like something was stuck here, to keep it steady.”
	“Yeah?” Vince leaned in closer, narrowed his eyes at it. “Hm, yeah, I like that. Maybe something stuck in there to keep the press higher-”
	“-to press things shorter than the bottles. Vince I think Brian was using this as a pill press, covertly.”
	“I’d be inclined to agree Sally, but do you think there’s any way to prove that?”
	“...Well,” she breathed, “Brian seems like he’d clean up both here and wherever on the pressing bit they would meet.” She pointed to the dominant point of contact between the cap holder and the theoretical cylinder she was placing on the press in her head.
	“Maybe whatever adhesive he used nabbed some of it up? Could look at that for methaqualone, heroin, other shit.”
	“Problem is Vince,” she tapped her book, “we’d need a warrant, and we’d have to wait days for a result, and-”
	“Alright, alright, alright- we’ll do this sketchy, street-cop style.” He cut his hands out in front of him, diagraming his plan. “You can swab up that gunk on your finger, I ask you for a light upstairs while we make like we’re leaving, you *happen* to toast your finger there and we have an in. A nand- copdroid’s nose knows, right?”
	“Well…”
	“I understand time isn’t of the essence here, but the longer we have Brian locked up the longer whoever or whatever he’s involved in has to tidy up their affairs, yeah?”
	“Yeah… yeah, okay Vincent.” She pocketed her notebook, turning to the barely visible layer of goop, swabbing it up on her fingertip. It was oily and thick, worn from light exposure and repeatedly being reapplied. Whatever this *stuff* was, it was chock full of garbage, sucking it up like a vacuum from the careless hands working around it. “Let’s try this.”