"There was a loud bang as a chair fell apart in Michael's hands, and his partner rushed to get between him and the informant, trying to calm Michael down as much as possible.
Today's operation was a complete failure, no matter if it was Lynch, who had temporarily swooped forward to make a delivery, or the other team that had searched his temporary residence, they hadn't found anything out of the ordinary at all.
They didn't even see a dollar in change, let alone find at least five thousand dollars in the informant's mouth, either on Lynch's own person or in that room.
Failure of the operation meant that Michael was going to be humiliated in front of his coworkers, and the hierarchical and positional relationships within the Federal Revenue Service made for a competitiveness inside this particular department that was unimaginable to outsiders.
Everyone wants to be an "agent", not an "investigator", and Michael is very much in the running for that promotion.
But if this failed operation alarmed Lynch and Fox resulting in the failure of the subsequent plan, then he would become a laughing stock and should not expect to be promoted for two or three years.
The vast majority of people blame others for their problems and troubles, and Michael blames this failure on an informant giving unreliable information.
So he asked the informant into this room, then raised the chair in a fit of rage and snarling and slammed it down hard on his back.
"Do you have any idea how much I've lost because of all your faulty information?" , he said as he struggled to break free from his partner's block while reaching out and pointing at his informant who was crouched on the table looking in pain.
The informant was a newspaper head, and the main sources of information in Sabine and other cities were in the hands of a number of specialized intelligence-gathering agencies and newspaper heads.
The paperboys would tell the head of the paper what they found out that was a little different, which was another job between the head of the paper and the paperboys.
They may not pay the paperboys anything for it, no money, no rewards, and yet the paperboys obediently do it anyway, in exchange for mean favors.
Some smart investigators and agents have some similar informants, while a newspaper head doesn't serve just one particular handler.
We all come out to buy and sell intelligence not for any sense of justice or morality, it's all about the money, and we don't need to label ourselves as too noble.
There are people like Michael, but not many, and taking it out on the informants is a stupid move.
Newspaperhead's facial muscles twisted and tangled from the chair that had been slammed so hard into his back, his eyes glowing with hatred, a hatred that was quickly becoming meek.
He had something on Michael, he had gotten a young girl before and then something happened that happened to be discovered by Michael.
Michael took the girl and also left behind evidence such as a recording of him confessing to the crime and his handwritten and fingerprinted account of the crime.
"I'm not lying, the kid in my hand just gave him close to fifteen hundred dollars in change, I swear I'm not lying!" , he defended himself and prayed that this awfulness would pass quickly.
He seemed to have forgotten that there was once a girl who prayed the same way and didn't get the results she hoped for.
Michael pushed his partner out of the way and walked over to the table, he grabbed the newspaper head by the hair and punched it, his partner stood to the side and didn't continue to block.
As long as Michael didn't use things he wouldn't interfere too much, at least he couldn't kill someone with his bare hands, but he could take things, and he was only doing it to prevent accidents, not that he really didn't want Michael to be violent.
Of course it's not like there's no way to fix it if you do get someone killed, it's just going to be a little trickier and a lot of punching.
Sabine is a small city, and both the Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Revenue are familiar with the people in the courts, and they're not going to condemn a government worker with a promising career to death for someone who's wandering around the edges of the gray.
There is a high degree of being able to acquit in court, after all, some small accidents in the process of chasing fugitives is also something that people can accept.
One punch, two punches, three punches ...
Several punches were thrown in a row, and only when Newspaperhead's cheek was swollen high and still slightly deformed did Michael drop his fist.
He shook off his hands, picked up the glass filled with water on the table and raised it, pouring the cold water over the newspaper man's head.
The water slipped down his hair in a trace, making his somewhat blurred consciousness suddenly awake, followed by a sharp pain and localized loss of consciousness numbness interlaced with the sensation of making him a little ... overwhelmed.
It felt like it hurt, but exactly where it hurt, he didn't know.
"Arrange for your man to send him five thousand dollars in change over there this afternoon, then we arrest the scene!" , Michael quickly had an idea, and he glanced back at his partner, who nodded slightly in agreement with his plan.
From a judicial point of view, this may be suspected of "inducing the commission of a crime", which is illegal in itself, and all the behaviors produced and evidence collected by the suspect in this process do not have legal effect.
But this was a small city, after all, and we all knew each other, so there was no need to make each other's faces look bad over something that wouldn't make it outside.
There are times when it is normal behavior for frontline investigative staff to manipulate the chain of evidence a little bit so that criminals can be successfully brought to justice, and we have long been accustomed to it.
He grabbed the newspaper man's hair again and ripped it back so that he had to look up at himself with his stupid face swollen halfway up his cheeks, "Got it?"
The newspaper head's evasive gaze dissipated the anger and certain emotions he couldn't quite put his finger on. He was still the same Michael that people couldn't "say no" to, not the same guy that had suddenly gotten a little timid and backed down.
"Yes ... I understand ..."
Michael let go, his wet hair letting some of the water stains fall onto his palm, and he reached up and wiped his hand back and forth on the paperhead's shirt before patting the swollen face and leaving with a small smile of satisfaction at the paperhead's screams of anguish.
Calm was restored to the room, and the newspaper head's eyes went from a very brief moment of hatred, enmity, and insanity, to one of gradual docility.
He stood up slowly, and just as he straightened his back there was a sudden sharp pain that made him hunch over his upper body, and he picked up his hat and pressed it to his head, and after a moment or two's pause, left the room.
On the other hand, Lynch, who had returned to his temporary residence from the laundromat, looked at the disorganized room and chose to call the police at the first opportunity.
Yes, the police were called, and he didn't acquiesce as if nothing had happened, even though he knew what was going on here.
Soon the police came, they took a look at the scene and immediately had a judgment, coupled with the fact that Lynch said he lost five hundred dollars, it was clearly a case of burglary, and the amount was not small.
As for how it can be detected, it depends on Lynch's luck, in the officer's words, no one knows who came in, and there are no witnesses in the vicinity, so it's hard to recover damages for Lynch if the other party doesn't continue to commit crimes and get caught.
That basically means that the case is over.
As the cops were about to get ready to leave, Lynch suddenly added some clues, "Mr. Policeman ..."
The police officer standing in the doorway in charge of making a statement at the scene collected his attention on his colleague and then looked at Lynch, "Yes?"
"I remember, I also lost a gold ring that I was going to give to my girlfriend as a gift, it was engraved with 'My Beloved Catherine' ...", he sighed remorsefully , "I should have kept it with me!"
The policeman sympathized even more with the young man, writing this small detail at the bottom of his field notes and reassuringly saying, "It's an important clue, and if the guy is going to take off in the near future, it might come to us."
"Anything else to add?"
Lynch shook his head, "No, no more, thanks for coming over, sir!"
The policeman withdrew his pen and clipped his writing pad as he held the brim of his hat, "Wait for our good news, lad!"