Participants:
| Scene Title | Calling on Lady Luck |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Two conspirators meet over reheated pizza to discuss the trustworthiness of one Simon Broome - and agreeing to both tackle either end of a future problem. |
| Date | October 3, 2010 |
Dorchester Towers: Matt's Apartment
Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, whether one goes by the Christian idea of the Sabbath or the simple fact that a large percentage of American businesses choose to be closed on Sundays. It's a day that even Matt Parkman has cordoned off as a day in which he takes care of things that normally get ignored all week long. Things like meeting with Kaylee Thatcher. Things like appearing on national television. Things like driving by Redbird Security to pass along a message via brain-wave that he'd like to see Richard Cardinal, if the man can spare an evening.
This time, at least, he's expecting the shadowy figure to pay him a visit.
It's due to that reason that Parkman doesn't do much when he finally arrives home other than nuke a slice of pizza and pour himself a glass of from-the-mix lemonade, both of which he takes to the small table in his dining room. For once, there is no work spread in front of him. No newspapers or other public media. Just a man with his meager dinner, dressed in his shirt-sleeves with a shoulder holster still strapped across his broad back.
"Seriously? All you're having to eat is a slice of re-heated pizza? They're not paying you enough for the shit that you put up with every day, Matt… Matt…"
The whispers stir through the room from somewhere nearby, quite possibly beneath the table itself, before they move; darkness flowing to the wall's edge and then upwards in a ripple of living shadow. Then Cardinal pushes outwards from the tenebrous shape, forcing himself into three dimensions and letting light and colour slowly spill back through his form. At first it seems as if the shadow clings, but no - he's just in a suit today, a black suit, complete with fedora.
The hat itself's tossed onto the table, then, and he steps over to sit opposite the other man, "You need a vacation."
"I don't think I could ever afford to be glamorous," Parkman says with a smirk at Cardinal's evaluation of both his eating habits and working conditions. He nods for the other man to sit before he shoves the rest of the slice into his mouth and chews it. The fact of the matter is he shouldn't be eating at all this late, but sometimes a slice of pizza is just what you need to take the edge off.
Once the last of the pizza is swallowed, Parkman leans back in his chair and lifts his glass to guzzle down some lemonade. But he doesn't set it back down on the table immediately. "You're really getting into this whole private dick thing, aren't you," he says, glancing from the hat back to the man who, until a few moments ago, was wearing it. "I think I have a job for you, and it even involves a dame."
"Me either. It's not that I couldn't if I really wanted to, but it's just not me… I could never be like that Montague guy…" Cardinal leans an arm down against the table, his other coming up to scratch against his chin lightly. A smile tugs up at one corner of his lips, "…lay it on me, then. I seem to be playing the private dick a lot lately."
"What do you know about Eve Mas?"
Cardinal may want all the facts laid out in front of him at the get-go, but Parkman seems to be of a mind to draw out the conversation, to see if Cardinal can provide the sort of help he's hoping he can. He doesn't provide any information other than the woman's name, but from the look on his face, her name is just the bait. For now, Parkman's just waiting to see if the other man will bite.
Endgame> Aric says, "ok cool I am not completely dumb I have no idea what a narn is"
"Eve?"
The roguish languor vanishes in an instant like the facade that it is, and Cardinal straightens in his chair - biting down on the bait hard, his forehead furrowing into deep lines and his lips pursing in a tight line. "I know her, yes… she's one of the precognitives that work with us, or worked with us, given her situation."
Parkman nods, taking a moment to drain his glass before he sets it on the table again. "She's apparently had visions of a showdown happening maybe a year from now." Like Cardinal, any vestige of casual camraderie has been wiped from his face and tone, and he keeps the man across the table locked in a level gaze. "Something that I don't want to see come true." He pauses then, the hand still around the glass slipping down to the table, his fingers rolling against the wood surface. His eyes drop to the middle of the table, focusing on the discarded hat once again.
"But I do want to see the painting she did."
"Oh, she has," Cardinal bites out, a bitterness painting his tone, "Has she?" The man is wearing his shades, as usual, so it's hard to meet his eyes - but he looks back steadily anyway, his lips pursing in a tight line. "Who told you that she had?"
"Someone I hope I can trust," Parkman says, the skin around his eyes crinkling a little more as he watches Cardinal. He wanted to trust Simon Broome, if only just in case the information shared with him was true. Now, with Cardinal expressing doubt, he isn't sure. "Is there a reason I shouldn't?" In short, the telepathic question that follows the verbal one hardly needs to be uttered, but it's projected all the same. Do you know something I don't know?
"I can't get you any paintings she's made recently…" Cardinal's weight leans back in the chair, and he braces an elbow on the chair's back, head tilting to rest on his hand as he looks at the other man with a frown, "…she's in Institute custody. They hit her home hard, dragged her out of it, and I haven't seen her since. Broome claims she's getting 'necessary therapy' but I find that difficult to believe."5r
"You don't trust Broome," Parkman states, shaking his head. It's not something he needs to read Cardinal's thoughts to see. "Broome's the one who told me about this. The only thing he wanted to talk about. Kept saying how important I was, and how I should protect my family." Parkman sighs, then leans forward again and folds his arms on the table.
The fact remains that the Institute might not be any better than the Company was. I've got sources keeping an eye on it, but I can't do anything if I'm dead.
"I don't trust people who have my friends kidnapped and refuse to release them." Cardinal's eyes close, then, and he exhales a whispered sigh of breath, "What did she foresee?"
I may… apparently… change my mind. Apparently, at some point, I'm going to meet him… in nineteen seventy-seven. He seems to think that we're friends. They have orders not to interfere with me directly, which doesn't… even make sense.
"Peter fighting Sylar, inside the Battery Park City offices." Where Parkman's set himself up for his stay in New York City. "I can't not go to work for the next year, Rich. And I can't stay in D.C. all that time either." Not with November 8th still looming and Sylar presumably in the area. "But I also can't be second-guessing myself. But you're telling me you can't get in to get the painting. You have other precogs? Precogs that could confirm what Mas supposedly dreamt?"
"Peter fighting… Christ." Cardinal's hand drops down to the chair's arm, and he sits up with a frown, "At this point I don't know which one've them to root for…" There's a moment's pause, "…I'll check the latest crop of paintings. There's a storehouse of them that Linderman has, but I haven't gotten around to raiding it. There is…" He grimaces, "There is one precog you could ask. If she's willing to talk to you."
"Would she be more willing to talk to you?"
Parkman isn't sure if he wants to meet with a hesitant precog - someone he doesn't already know - concerning an issue of this magnitude. It's one thing that it involves his own personal safety, but quite another when Sylar and the president's brother are also linked in. It's not something he's comfortable sharing with new acquaintances. All the same, he asks the question: "Who is she?"
"No, no, it's… it doesn't have anything to do with it being you, or me, it's…" Cardinal purses his lips for a moment as he tries to figure out how to phrase his thoughts, his fingers drumming against the table's edge, "…as far as I can tell, her ability never turns off. If you aren't meant to find her, you won't. But… you can ask her guardian, Judah Demsky."
Wryly, "Don't go there with any plans to register her, though. Or you'll never find her. She's as much a force of nature as anything, I think, sometimes. She talks in riddles, too."
It's been a long time since Parkman thought about Judah Demsky and his ward…wards? The man tilts his head and glances around the room, lost in thought for a moment. "Riddles, huh," he says, his lips pursing for a moment before they settle into a frown. He's never been a fan of riddles. "I guess it can't be a rule that they all draw or something like that." What Parkman would do for another Isaac Mendez.
"Dempsky still living where he was a couple of years ago?" It's not like it won't be hard to double-check, assuming the man hasn't found a reason to go off the grid.
"Probably? I've never had his address," Cardinal admits with a slow shake of his head, "I have a painter, but I don't think he's done anything about those two lately - I'll check his workspace to see if he's shit out anything interesting onto canvas lately." He brings his hand up, rubbing his fingers against his forehead, "Eve was my primary precognitive, but, well."
"I'll try to get in to see her, but Broome didn't make it sound like it was very possible." And it's something Parkman regrets about the interview. He nods again, then shakes his head despairingly. "I'd appreciate if you'd check. Or even ask him to clean his brushes and try again." It's more than a little unsettling, after all. The real key is bringing Sylar in, and Parkman knows it. What with the copycat killings, maybe it's time to pull Hanson off of leave.
"I don't want to overreact," he says with a sigh, pushing himself out of the chair and taking his plate and glass into the kitchen. "But I also know, whether or not she painted it, that that kind of standoff is going to cause some serious collateral damage." Damage that extends beyond himself and his own potential demise.
"They don't generally get a choice in what they see, you know," Cardinal observes with a slow shake of his head, "I don't know if it's… overreaction, really… I mean, Christ, there aren't two people I'd less want to have rampaging across my office." He pauses for a moment, then corrects himself, "Well, not many. Sub in Samson for either of those, I mean…"
"If Broome brought it to you, then— there's a reason. Could be that he was legitimately warning you."
Parkman can only nod at that as he slips the dishes into the dishwasher and shuts it again, turning to walk back toward Cardinal and table but pausing in the small archway into the kitchen and leaning against it's frame. "I guess," he says, still unsure. "Better safe than sorry, I guess." He's quite for a moment then looks at Cardinal with narrowed eyes. "You keep any tabs on Petrelli?" Peter, of course. Parkman pretty much has the President handled.
"God." Cardinal brings his hand up to rub against the bridge of his nose, eyes closing, "Yes… mind you, he gives me a headache, since I think his mother had his common sense surgically removed from him at birth… right now I'm trying to pry Carmichael's claws out of him."
He nods at that. "You work on Petrelli, and I'll keep hackin' away at the Sylar case." Given, Sylar is a bit easier. All Parkman has to do is figure out where the bastard is and hatch a foolproof plan to haul him through the judicial system. Still, having a goal in mind helps to keep everything else manageable.
"Deal?"
"So everything'll be alright so long as you can bring one of the most dangerous Evolved on the planet to trial," replies Cardinal with an amused twitch of his lips as he gestures in the direction of the telepath, "And I can talk sense into a Petrelli, everything'll come up roses, is that it?"
"Well, then I hope Lady Luck is listening, Matt, because we're damn well going to need it."