A Kind Gesture

Participants:

deckard_icon.gif felix_icon.gif

Scene Title A Kind Gesture
Synopsis Deckard gives Felix the finger.
Date November 12, 2008

The Nite Owl

The Nite Owl is a survivor from ages past - one of those ancient diners with huge plate glass windows, checkerboard linoleum floor, and a neon owl over the entrance that blinks at those entering. Inside, there's an L-shaped main counter, complete with vintage soda fountain and worn steel stools. All of the cooking is done on the ranges ranked against the rear wall. The outer wall is lined with booths upholstered in cracked scarlet vinyl, tables trimmed with polished chrome. Despite its age, it's been lovingly maintained. The air is redolent with the scent of fresh coffee, vanilla, and frying food.


Ever since Sylar came through his apartment like a tornado, well, home hasn't been all that appealing. Even though he's now safely moved in to a new shoebox in Chinatown. So, the Owl has become sort of his office away from home. At the moment, there's the remains of a dinner about to be cleared away by the waitress, and a stack of casework fanned out before him on the patterned formica. Felix is currently regarding it all with a sort of weary disgust.

Black overcoat replaced with grey, grey suit replaced with black, Flint enters the diner alone and just nods blandly to Felix's table when approached by some nice lady who doesn't want homeless people camped out at the front door. Just because he looks off and smells off and — well. We'll stop there. He drops himself into a seat opposite the fed, raises a hand, and says, "Coffee." Lo and behold, in mere seconds it actually appears, probably with a side of human saliva.

Felix looks up from his contemplation of an image of men gathered around a kitchen table - it's got the blurred graininess of something taken from a surveillance camera. He's not wearing his glasses, for once. Deckard's manifestation earns him a raised brow. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"You always look so happy to see me. Warms the heart." Only a touch snide over the edge of his coffee cup while he sips, Flint sniffs against the November chill lingering around him and sets the cup aside. Right hand free to move about the country, it moves instead to the interior of his overcoat, where it tugs out a plastic baggy with a foggy, condensation-laced interior. Inside the baggy is a cigarette box. Inside the cigarette box is something that does not sound like cigarettes.

"You and I both know I smoke Sobranies or Dunhills, so I take it that's not an attempt at a bribe," Felix says, drily. He glances down at the box in the bag, but doesn't reach to touch it. Not yet. "What's in there?"

"I can tell you what it isn't," says Flint, who balances both hands over the edge of the table in front of him in a loose knit. "It's not a bomb."

Well, fighting curiosity has never, ever been the Agent's strong point. Which is why he does what he does. So, after a moment's quiet contemplation of the mystery box, he grabs a napkin out of the dispenser at the end of the table, and opens baggy and box.

In the box is 1 (one) human finger, frosty cold, bloodless (though some smearing of the stuff contaminates the box interior) and set into a slight curl. Watching for Felix's reaction only peripherally, Flint dumps a cheap packet of cream into his rapidly cooling coffee.

Fel doesn't flinch, wince, or otherwise give any sign of disgust. Deckard's little gift only gets a puzzled frown, as if what he'd shoved over was a particularly difficult crossword. "Where did you get this? And do you have reason to think that the person this was once attached to is alive or dead?" he asks, voice perfectly calm, as he eyes it for a second longer, then vanishes it back into its box. "Waiter. I need a to-go box, and fill the bottom with ice, please," he says, lifting a hand peremptorily.

"Special delivery," says Flint simply, which is…the truth. He stirs with his straw, forces a toothless smile at the waiter, and waits until they've drifted off again to elaborate. "Unless they had the power to not to bleed to death when she cut their hands off at the wrists, I'd say they're probably dead."

Felix levels his gaze at Deckard. "You know who did it?" he wonders, tone studiously mild. "You said 'she'. Why did they send that to you? And how do you know the whole hand was taken?"

"Oops." He did say 'she'. How careless of him! A few more stirs later, Flint tries his coffee again, apparently more satisfied with the results this time around. "Because she sent them. Both of them. I would have kept the whole mess but I thought it might be a little more conspicuous if I did."

"You're going to tell me all you know, right now, right?" Fel's tone is gentle, almost amused. "Who 'she' is, or you think she is. We can go somewhere else if we need to. How long ago was this? And what did you do with the two whole human hands you supposedly received?"

Deckard does not reply immediately, which is about as confidence-inspiring as most things he says and does. Which is to say, not very. Coffee cup in hand, he rocks it left to right, watching the remnant slosh of sweet caffeine rather than Felix. "I only know three things. One," he takes one last swallow and thunks the cup aside, "the owner of that finger is probably dead. Two, there is a large scary black woman out there who likes to kill people. And three, I'm not going to see her again or learn anything else unless I'm able to come up with one of these." Right hand gone digging again, this time it draws out a scrap of paper with a photograph of a very angry-looking Israeli assault rifle printed on it.

"A Tavor, huh? An AK just wouldn't do? She must be a woman of discriminating tastes," Felix says, drily. "Now, again. When did this happen? And then begin at the beginning, and when you get to the end, stop."

"Are you going to get the gun for me?" Deckard cleverly answers Felix's question with another question, brows lifted across the table while he sets to folding the picture back over again.

"I'll consider it, if you answer my questions, and do so promptly," Fel says, as the waitress comes over with the asked for box of ice, which he promptly lays the cigarette box on. "But not before."

Skeptical. Deckard looks skeptical, brows leaning at a definite angle while he considers a promise of consideration in the place of an actual 'yes.' "November 7th, early morning, I got a call from an unknown number — probably a pay phone. Google didn't turn up anything. We met in a sparsely occupied part of Staten around ten. The hands where in a paper bag. She gave them to me as a promise. A promise of what would happen to me if I wasn't prompt. After we parted ways I broke off one of the fingers as subtly as I could and threw the rest of the bag into a drain."

Felix spoons sugar into his coffee, stirs lazily. "I wish you hadn't. You'll have to show me the drain, though no doubt the rats've eaten what's there by now," he says, tone faintly mournful. "What name did she give you when she called you, and what did she offer that got you out to meet her?"

"She didn't give me any name, and I don't ask for money on the phone. That's rude, you know. People want to meet, so we meet. Sometimes it works out and sometimes there's yelling and cursing and gunfire." Flint lifts an empty hand into a gesture that's just as empty. Nature of the business. "What about the Tavor?"

Felix flicks a brow up again. "Wait. What makes you think I can get that more easily than you? That's your business, isn't it? I'm an enthusiast, but I'm a pistol man. I don't have one of those damn things under my bed at home." Cream follows sugar into the coffee - apparently diabetes ASAP is on the Fed's agenda. "Did she leave you means to contact her, when you have this gun?"

Deckard thinks about that, eyes flicking down to the table. Then he reaches after his billfold. "You're in the fucking FBI. Pull some strings." A five is thumbed down onto the table, and a hell of a lot more frowny than he was when he originally came in, Flint pushes back his chair to stand. "Possibly."

"Possibly. Such as - smoke signal, carrier pigeon, heliograph?" Fel wonders, testing his coffee, before dumping sugar into it.

"Carrier pigeon," says Deckard decisively. Standing at the table's side, he rubs at his eye and sets to buttoning his coat.

"Name the method, or you don't get the gun," Fel says, more seriously, raising a patient gaze to the other man's face. "This isn't merely info gathering, now. Obstructing what just became a possible murder investigation is a whole other ball game. And I really don't want to have some nut send me your hands in a paper bag."

"Email." Buttons buttoned, Flint meets Felix's study at a cool remove helped by the fact that he literally has the higher ground while he's standing. "Keeping in mind that I don't want to have some nut send you my hands in a paper bag either."

"She won't," Fel says, with utter assurance. "What's the email?"

"'Call me when you have my tavor' at 'fuck you dot com.'" With a smile not unlike the one he gave the waiter earlier, Flint glances to the door and turns the rest of himself to head in that direction.

A finger for a gun. Not precisely an equal trade. Fel just shakes his head, scoldingly, but doesn't protest.

Deckard pushes out into the cold, leaving the door to swing shut on its own behind him without a glance back. Ill-tempered, even for him.


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November 12th: Reunions
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November 12th: Under a Pale Moon
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