Participants:
| Scene Title | Batman and Nightwing Walk Into a Strip Club |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Stop me if you've heard this one… Kaydence and Ezra bemoan the lack of work that keeps their minds engaged. |
| Date | October 28, 2009 |
A flashy little strip club, its name advertised in bright neon pink above the door in swooping cursive, with the figure of a woman outlined in the same seeming to kick a leg with each flash of the light. Two bouncers stand by the door, which is a reflective chrome and stays closed unless opened by the security duo, with a red carpeting extending out onto the pavement. They will check you for I.D. before permitting you entrance. You'll be greeted by a woman in full burlesque regalia, with exaggerated makeup, a corset that barely keeps everything in, fishnets and feathers. Provided you can pay the cover charge, she will show you to a table, offer to get your first drink of the evening, and leave you alone to enjoy what Burlesque has to offer.
The main room's focal point is the generous stage, a circular platform with Broadway lights around the edges, and a catwalk that extends further out into the scattered round tables where patrons can sit and drink. The lights that shine down on it are never particularly clear, often shards of pink, green, blue, which hide as much as they reveal. There is almost always a dancer on the stage, even as even more girls move around the room to give more intimate shows on tabletops. There's a long bar that crawls along one side of the room, with a couple of bartenders behind it, a counter of black glass with rows and rows of liquor on display on glass shelves. Leather booths are tucked away towards the back, offering some privacy for whatever purpose.
Despite the proposed theme of the club, impressions of burlesque only factor in with the permanent staff and particular shows of featured dancers. Otherwise, the tunes are standard for any kind of strip club, and the girls will wear what they like. There are private lounges for more expensive, personal shows, and a darkly lit, obscured staircase leading up to both dressing rooms and the manager's office.
Another day of patrol, paperwork, and police work. Detective Damaris can hardly wait to play the part of barfly, booze hound, and bitter philosopher at the Burlesque with her partner. She makes her way to their usual booth at a brisk pace, not only to keep the entertainment from attempting to do what they do, but also out of an anxious need to get the evening away from work started.
Though in truth, neither Kaydence Damaris nor Ezra Grimes ever really escape their work, or leave it behind at the office.
Ezra is sitting with a stripper at the bar. "Okay, listen. I just need you to nod your head or shake it. Okay? If what I say sounds bizarre. It's called the Socratic method. You don't need to know anything, you just need to ask questions. Alright, ready?" The stripper looks pretty clueless, but helpful. There might be a tip in it, after all. "I guess I can't use you as a sounding board for my cases, huh."
She shakes her head. That figures.
When Kay discovers "their" booth is empty, she stops short and looks around for her errant partner. He left before her, so he should be here. It's not like he ever ditches her without explanation. After all, he never knows if she might spit in his coffee or something.
One doesn't get to be a detective without powers of observation, however, and it isn't long before Ezra's spotted and Kaydence is headed his way. She claps a hand on his shoulder and glances to his companion. "Is the strange man bothering you, miss? You can tell me. I'm a cop." The ribbing is responded to only with a blank look. Kay's attention reverts back to Ezra, who earns himself a roll of the eyes. "Tip the lady and let her get back to the patrons who care about her assets, would'ja?"
"… Uh-huh. Alright, alright." Ezra tips her. It's a good tip. She's probably been listening to him yell about Socrates for awhile. "I'm sort of looking for treasures under rocks where there are nothin' but slugs, right? Maybe if we got a good case it'd be something."
"Tell me about it." Kaydence slides into the seat next to Ezra. "What're we drinking tonight?" She stands up again only long enough to shrug out of her brown duster and lay it across the stool so it doesn't just get up and walk away as coats sometimes do in establishments like this. "Sometimes, I feel like we should just go play vigilante on Staten Island. Just to give us something to do."
"Something weak. Weaker than unusual. There's a point of diminishing returns. I only get so much smarter when I get this much drunker. Anyways, Staten wouldn't help. Odds are we'd just get shot or something. We need to find a worthwhile case. We need to start /working/ again."
"You don't need to tell me that. I already know." Kaydence shakes her head and orders a beer. Not a light beer, though. That stuff's for sissies. "I don't get why we're so… benched. It's not like we went and shot our mouths off to Glenn Beck." No, Magnes Varlane is never going to live that fiasco down. But to be fair, Commissioner Lau isn't going to let anyone in the NYPD forget the perils of giving an interview, either.
"I'm tired of hearing about Glenn Beck. Did Glenn Beck murder anybody? No? Probably not? Then I sure as hell don't care," Ezra says, with a scowl. "Not when we could be doing something that matters. Of course, I could go back and forth and back and forth about it but until we actually have a good case no insight isn going to solve anything."
Kaydence only grins when Ezra scowls at her. He just doesn't ruffle her much anymore. "You and I squander our brilliant minds, and Matt's so busy that he can't even come home for a weekend." She shakes her head with a serious frown. "What am I going to do with that man? I feel like a widow twice over and we aren't even married yet." And with the way the woman's been behaving in recent months, it's debatable whether they ever will be married.
"If I could have the insights that guy has, I'd have stopped all crime ont he planet by now," Ezra says. "Have you considered transferring? To Homeland Security. That seems like where the big game is. We'd probably have to sign a contract in blood or something. Who knows what it takes."
"Would you really want to transfer over to HomeSec? If you thought the bureaucracy was bad now, imagine what it would be working directly for the government." Kaydence pulls a face, shaking her head. "No thank you. Plus, I like not having to traipse about all over the country. …Though it might beat doing nothing, huh?"
"It might beat doing all this. So would punching myself in the face with brass knuckles." Ezra's trying to work something out, but he can't figure out a way. "I'm good at solving problems. But I've never had a problem… finding problems. I usually accumulate them without having to bother."
"I'll call you next time I lose the remote, then. I mean, if you're that bored." Kaydence smirks, tossing a wink Ezra's way as she brings the pint of beer in front of her to her lips for a drink.
"I'm pretty bored," Ezra says, without irony. "I've been reading mystery novels. They're no good."
"Oh come now. Have you ever read Rex Stout? That's good stuff." A tilt of the head to denote consideration and Kaydence is sliding her partner a teasing glance. "Then again, maybe cantankerous Nero Wolfe hits too close to home?"
"I haven't. Maybe I will." Ezra slumps forward in the seat, sort of forming a tent over his beer. "This sucks. Let's just become superheroes. Aren't there supposed to be superheroes?"
"Which one of us is Batman? If it's you, then I'm Nightwing. None of this Robin bullshit. Maybe Batgirl. Maybe." Kay frowns and leans against the bar similarly. "Superheroes don't get paid, though. How we gonna pay the rent on the Batcave, or the upkeep on the Batmobile?"
"Who's Nightwing?" Ezra asks, after a moment of careful thought on the matter.
Kaydence winces faintly and shakes it off. "Never mind. My husband was into all that comic book stuff." Your geek is showing, Damaris. "If you weren't such a surly bastard, then I'd say you might be more the Spider-Man type."
"I know who Spider-Man is. I think he's kind of an asshole," he says, flatly. "Too much whining. Then again, here I am. In a strip club. Whining about my job."
"You wanna come over to my place? I've got cheaper beer, and pizza. I mean, unless you like the dim lighting, music, and the naked girls. Can't blame you much if that's the case." She passes the silence that will inevitably follow by drinking down more of her beer. Ezra rarely answers quickly or impulsively.
Ezra does — he's a thinker. One has to wonder. If so much of his activity is so carefully pre-planned, what's /actually/ genuine? "Yeah, sure. The atmosphere here's a drag. Let's get loaded on pepperoni and watch COPS."
Kaydence groans, setting her beer down quickly to shoot Ezra a look. "Anything but COPS." She chugs down the remainder of her booze and sets a bill on the bar, pinning it under the empty bottle. "I've got the entire James Bond collection."
"Great," Ezra says, putting some money down. "That'll do. I always liked On Her Majesty's Secret Service best."
"Depressing ending, but I think I have to agree." Kaydence slides off her set and pulls her coat back on. After a flip of her dark hair, she's fishing her keys out and gesturing toward the door. "Riding with me?"
Ezra staggers out. "You had one beer, I had… a couple, so yeah." Does he even own a car?
"Never know if you're gonna be stubborn enough to ride the subway," Kaydence muses. She holds the door for her partner and then leads the way to her car.