Have You Heard?

Participants:

logan_icon.gif tess_icon.gif

Scene Title Have You Heard?
Synopsis After hearing the news of her father's death, Tess passes on word, and has a request.
Date November 14, 2010

Dorchester Towers: Kain's Penthouse


After being left by Manny in Kain's penthouse, Tess spent some time just going through, touching things here and there, sitting on Kain's bed and crying. But somewhere in the middle of all that, she started calling Logan, redialing until he picked up, so she could ask him to come over. She hasn't paid attention to the news since she got told of her father's death, so has no idea if Logan knows or not. But she knows they were friends.

When he does arrive, she's standing in the living room with a glass of something alcoholic and amber-colored in one hand, the other resting lightly on her stomach, just over where the still-healing wound lies. She's by the windows, one shoulder leaning against them. She's pale, eyes red, and is barefoot, wearing just jeans and a tee-shirt.

He hasn't been back to the mainland, until today.

Hitching an expensive ride back, means that Logan makes it worth his while. He's dressed in something that isn't a leather jacket and river washed sweaters, gotten in front of a mirror to shave his face and scrub it of dry skin, had long, hot showers and then— by the time Logan is heading upstairs to Kain's familiar penthouse, he is well groomed. But not untired. In sleek black with accents of white, indulging in finery, he looks like he has somewhere to be that isn't here. Tess is drinking for one.

Letting himself in, he mostly lets her say the first word, his interest avid and as sharp as a scalpel in the stare he sweeps up and down the silhouette she makes at the windows.

It takes a moment for Tess to realize that she's not alone, and when she does her head turns slowly towards Logan. She's silent for a moment more, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Thanks for comin', John," she says softly. "Do you…I mean…" She shakes her head, opening her eyes and looking at him. "Have you heard what happened?"

Being someone who likes to be informed, irritation is in Logan's pause when he draws up a blank, for all that he's putting a few things together by standing in Kain's empty penthouse with his crying daughter. They lead dangerous jobs. They did dangerous things. However, the equation is not being made, empty blank after the = that comes after the sum of its parts. Have you heard what happened, during a week when everything is happening.

A brisk shrug and a small shake of his head, expression expectant.

Tess chews lightly on her lower lip and nods, walking over to him and offer him her glass of whiskey. "You might want this," is her reasoning, before she starts fidgetting. It takes a minute before she can get the words out. Part of her is still rebelling at the very idea. "Someone killed him, John. They murdered my dad," she says, voice still quiet, but rushed. Not like usual, it's not her hyperness forcing as many words as possible out in one breath. It's trying to get them out before she breaks down and cries. Again.

Logan takes the whiskey more out of obligation than desire, more interested in the news. When she confirms it, his mouth pulls in a grimace, icy eyes downturned to observe the surface of liquor as he gently rocks it in its container. "'Someone'," he repeats, gently — and his voice is rougher than she remembers, although his face doesn't convey emotion, so it's probably not that. Probably, it's sleepless nights and chain smoking tearing up his throat.

He wets it with liquor, a swift sip. "What do you know about it?" he asks her, even as she breaks down in front of him. "How do you know it was a murder?"

"I don't know much. Manny…He didn't have much to tell me," Tess admits. "He just said someone killed him, that there were no witnesses." She turns away, trying to hide not only the fact that she's wiping away tears, but that her skin is starting to get a bit shiny with adhesive.

She doesn't fall silent once she's turned away, though. "Last week, he brought me up here to talk, really talk. And this guy, Walsh, he came out of the bedroom with a gun. Beat dad, threatened him…shot me. I'm wondering if it wasn't him. But before dad had Manny take me to Jersey, he said…He said that he had things to take care of, and that Walsh wasn't top of the list."

Though she doesn't have her emotions under control yet, she glances back at Logan. "You work for the Linderman right? You…You're not just the owner of Burlesque, are you? You're like my dad." It's not just a question, but there's a hopeful note to it.

Walsh rings some vague bell, but Logan may have to go away and think about it before it becomes any clearer, a line forming between his brows as she relates to him what she knows — his gratitude manifested as silence for the information delivered matter of fact and plainly. At least he has people to talk to, now. He finishes the rest of the whiskey, his hands tight around the glass and ready to pitch it towards one of the windows that overlooks Manhattan.

He doesn't. Not when she pins him back under her attention. "Yes," he says, too tired to try and skirt around it, or to even try to find a reason to do so. "Only I'm alive, and he's not. So I guess I'm better at it."

His last statement has Tess flinching and glancing away for a moment. Then, slowly she turns back to face him. "Find them, John. Please. Find whoever did this to my dad. We'd only…" She shakes her head and runs fingers through her hair, grimacing when the strands try to stick, her fingers now tacky, and it's getting worse the more upset she gets. "Find them. Before the cops do. Please. I couldn't stand it if someone did this to him and just…got away with it. Or got a cushy cell in jail. I'll give you anything you ask for. I'll get it, do it, whatever. Just please…do this for me. For him."

Logan doesn't like being told what to do, which is probably not a difficult to figure out. As Tess might have worked out herself. But he doesn't object or sneer at her, just kind of looks vaguely uncomfortable. Like he's not sure what Tess has that he'd want, and yet denying needing anything from her is— kind. And against his instinct.

"I need to look into it anyway." Going for honesty, then. He leans to the side to set the glass down on some flat surface, and absently runs his palms together. "I've got some ideas. When did it happen? On the 8th?" And then he's looking at her again.

And frowning. "What's wrong with you?"

Tess tugs her fingers out of her hair and shrugs almost guiltily. "When Walsh shot me I manifested. I'm glue girl." She pauses a moment, then slowly shakes her head. "I'm not sure. Manny…When he told me, I wasn't really with it. I just wanted to know who, and he couldn't tell me that. God I wanna know."

She starts to pace, starting to rub at her face before she remembers the glue on her hands and just curls them into fists. "I've been goin' nuts since I got here. Part of the time I'm numb. Part of the time I'm cryin' my eyes out. And the rest of the time…The rest of the time I just wanna hit someone. Hurt someone. Hurt the person who did this."

She pauses and looks back to Logan. "Thank you, though. For agreein' to look into it. I would but I just don't…I wouldn't even know where to begin other'n Walsh, and he'd probably shoot me as soon as he saw me."

Glue girl gets a raised eyebrow, a trace of amusement in the crease of a dimple left of his mouth, but it fades. "And I know some of your old man's associates," Logan adds, which is probably why she had hoped he is not only a strip club manager. He dresses too well for one, anyway, lifting a hand now to smooth at tie in an absent fidget. "Though you can do one thing for me, I s'pose. You can call me Logan. My mum calls me John."

And Kain, occasionally, evidently, but what with him being dead and all, now just Sarah Logan. "I'll be in touch." He shouldn't leave her in her dead dad's apartment with booze and feeling nuts and tears, but it doesn't really occur to him to do much else, backing up a step in retreat.

There's a shadow of a smile as Tess nods her agreement to call him Logan, but even that disappears at his next words. "Oh…Yeah, sure. You can find me here, or you got my number." This time it's her who's fidgeting, which she almost never does. Then, "You don't gotta go. If you don't want to. I mean…" She trails off and shrugs, moving to the bar to busy herself with making a drink. "My best friends are gone for a while. I'd like the company."

He's in a half swivel for the door by the time she's summoning him back, Logan glances out the window rather than at the time before he picks his way back further into the apartment. Two fingers loosen his own white silk tie a little, thumbs apart the button that closes the collar. "One drink," he says, with a glance towards the liquor cabinet. "We'll toast to your dad, then I need to get going and see who I need to see while it's still sun up. Curfew's an even bigger bitch than ever.

"And 'm not getting arrested in this future," probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's one of those things on his mind. "You staying here or what?"

Tess relaxes a little and nods. "Yeah…Manny said that Linderman gave this place to my dad, so it's mine now," she says quietly, pouring her drink, then reaching for his glass to refill it with whiskey. As she offers his glass out to him she adds, "It's all I've really got left of him, so I'm staying here." Then more softly, and in a voice filled with regret, "I never even got a picture of him…"

But then she pushes that aside and lifts her glass, forcing a bit of a smile. "To my dad. Who was a pretty damn good dad, even if he only got to be one for a few days."

Taking the drink, Logan forces a smile back to her, as if the fact that Zarek is dead and what that might mean is, once more, settling its weight on his shoulders. "That's something. Here's to… I suppose, someone I could trust, in the end." And those are as rare as hen's teeth, when you're Logan. He clinks the flat bottom of his glass to her's, and shows his teeth a little as he swoops the drink back, the brandied poison taste of whiskey different to the harsher acid of gin.

It won't be the only memorial he gets, but it's a lonely little one now, tasting of alcohol and overlooking the ruined city.

Tess lowers her eyes at Logan's toast, then after the light touching of glass to glass, tilts her back and empties it before it's finally lowered with a faint grimace. Sipping is one thing, shooting a glass full of whiskey is another entirely, it seems.

Seconds slip by before Tess asks one more favor of Logan. "I'll let you get going now, but…Do you…If you find any pictures of my dad, other than the one in the paper, about the polar bear…do you think you could let me know?"

"I'll see what I can do," is probably what Logan says to everything. Find a murderer, open a brothel, dig up a photograph? I'll see what I can do. It's genuine, at the very least, cast in pragmatism like cold iron and without dew-eyed sentiment. Motivation to do as she bids about that first favour is fueled and warmed and coddled a little by hastily downed burning whiskey, so there is that.

He sets down the glass, and with a subtle nod, he abandons orphan for a second time, this round with more permission and determination in his gait than awkward linger, refixing his tie as he goes.


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