Grant's apartment is small but not dirty, in a high-rise building off the
Island. His neighbors are raucous but seem harmless enough. A large
aquarium takes up most of one wall, filled with brilliantly-colored
tropical fish, beautiful oranges and yellows and neon blues. Another part
of the wall appears to be devoted to baseball posters and photos,
including a 1986 Mets World Champions pennant autographed by someone
unreadable. There's something weird about the apartment you can't put your
finger on at first - then it strikes you: not a single piece of furniture
is flush with either a wall or any other piece of furniture - there is
always some angle that makes even walking across the room a relatively
twisty path. His radio is tuned to the all-80s station, his clothes appear
to be used but clean. He has one picture of his ex-wife and two of his
family. 

<OOC> Morden lets you pose entering. Door's locked, only lights on are
those you left on, if any. 

Grant breezes right in as if nothing is wrong. He shrugs off his coat and
lays it across a chair near the door. 

Preston reclines in one of your chairs, while a glance to your right will
show his partner, Wilkes, in an opposite corner of the room. Wilkes has
choosen to remain standing, doing his best to look omnius and perhaps
suceeding just a little. "Good evening detective," Preston says as the
door closes.

Grant breezes right past them too, as if he missed Preston speaking the
first time. He goes into the kitchenette, then pokes his head back out and
looks puzzled. "Oh, hello." he says. "I wondered if you got my message. 
Here's your file." He tosses a file folder on the table. "What happened -
did traffic hold you up?" He ducks back down and rummages through his
refrigerator a bit. 

"Yes, we got the message," Preston says. He doesn't so much as look at the
file, at least not yet. "That is, the liason office did. Why all the
threats? 'Requests' like that only make it more difficult for us to do our
job." 

Grant looks back out, as he fetches out a bottle of Mexican beer, a
wrapped packet of hamburger and some vegetables and spices. "Threats? 
Huh?" he says. "I told you guys to meet me here tonight, I had the first
file Morden asked for. Didn't you get the voicemail? Aw, I hate those
things anyway." 

Grant opens the beer with a bottle opener. "Are you talking about the DA's
little...uh...demi-subpoena thing?" 

Agent Preston takes out a copy of a file. Standing from the couch, he
walks out into the kitchen and drops it on the table. "Threatening SHIELD
with bureaucratical crap like this doesn't do anything but drive people
that much further away from you, Detective. Whether you were directly
responsible or not isn't relevant, at this point. Your name isn't exactly
popular with the liason office, now that they'll have to pull overtime
during the holidays to fill this request." 

Grant shrugs genially. "Look, I'm not allowed to say exactly what Morden
told me, but I asked him -specifically- if he wanted us to hold off on the
investigation so that you guys could get your ducks in a line. And he said
no way, not a chance. I don't want to cross your boss." he says. "You guys
want a beer?" 

You say "See, the first time around, we had about a hundred people working
the case. We haven't gotten everyone back up to speed, but when we re-open
like this, we're looking at about fifty or sixty immediately, because this
thing's been flapping around in the breeze for three months. There's a lot
of loose ends to nail down. All I said was 'SHIELD says it's okay to go'
and they said great. It's not my fault. I'm not even in charge of that end
of the case, that's the DA's office. They're crawling all over this thing.
You're just lucky I've got friends over there, so I can see what it is
they're looking for." 

"The local aspects of the case are your responsibility," Preston says,
shaking his head at the drink. "The next time your DA tries to yank our
chain, he'll find out that brick walls don't move. Ask nice. Play nice.
We're all on the same team here, remember?"

Grant turns on his burner. "You and I and even your boss can say the case
is my responsibility but you and I and even your boss knows that that
don't make it so." He sprays a pan with some cooking spray and washes his
hands, crumbling the meat up into the pan. "I don't call the shots. I just
fill in the blanks. Hell, half the time I don't even get to decide when to
bring in the suspects. Get POed at me if you think it'll make you feel
better, but don't think it'll change things. I am always for cooperation,
you know that. Ask Morden if you don't believe me. I even agreed to bring
that file to you and that could be my job." He starts to spice up the meat
and chop the vegetables. Then he sighs. "Hell, what did you expect them to
do? Ask for one thing at a time? This is a mass-murdering cop-killer here.
'We need it all, we need it yesterday - no - we need it three months ago.'
It really should have been no surprise." 

"Then you say /that/ in the request -- not 'give us this now or we'll tell
mother on you,'", Preston says. "You're MERT's DI. If you suggest a
certain angle be taken on an aspect of the case, it'll be taken. I've done
what I could on my end.. Talked the liason officer out of making you sign
personally for every sheet of evidence delivered next week." 

Grant grins. "You think they'd -really- let a lousy -detective- be on top
of a hundred-man operation, regardless of what unit he's in charge of? One
as high-profile as this one? Were you -ever- a cop, Preston?" He holds up
a hand to forestall an answer. "Never mind, never mind. Thanks for the
help, I'll do the same on this end. Don't sweat the Congressional stuff,
either. All that says is they'll appeal. They're lawyers, they gotta put
that in everything, they put it on their Christmas gifts to their mothers.
Hell, I can't even figure out half of what they put on that memo. I just
stuffed it in the file and kept making calls." He looks down at the pan.
"I don't think I have enough meat for you guys, but if you want a veggie
burrito or something, I've got plenty of rice..."

Preston chuckles, taking both the offered file and the one he showed you
while heading to the door. "Sweat the Congressional stuff? Why, when
SHIELD is under no compunction to share such information with the NYPD in
the first place? The old man's still laughing about it. *I'm* irritated
because it makes me wonder why I'm going out of my way to help you in the
first place." Wilkes gives you a final look before heading out of the
apartment, having not said a single word..as usual. Preston follows him
out. 

Grant grins at the pair. "Hey, it's not -my- memo. If you're not worried
about it, quit complaining already." he says. "See you in the funny
papers."