Participants:
| Scene Title | Mine |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Logan, Ina and Kelly perform some wetwork on Caliban's behalf. |
| Date | October 29, 2010 |
Las Vegas, Nevada
The dead of night in Las Vegas, Nevada, isn't dead at all.
Neon lights reflect off the wide bay windows of Dr. Iris Spencer's condo. She's paying for the view rather than the unit itself, which is sparsely furnished in dark leathers and rich cherry-coloured woods designed to compliment a neutral paint job in earthy shades of palest brown and biege with white crown moulding. The floor itself is a plush carpet in a colour that's difficult to distinguish even under the right lighting conditions, and very different from what the Linderman Group employees who have broken into the house have become accustomed to during their time in New York City, where most apartments have ancient hardwood or its original tile underfoot.
Medical journals litter a coffee table in front of a faux fireplace filled with unevenly chopped pieces of wood in a feeble attempt to make it appear more authentic. An overripe bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter lords over a copy of this morning's newspaper, the crossword section half-completed and one of the funnies cut out with a pair of kitchen scissors, then stuck to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a Monarch butterfly.
The laptop in the overstuffed armchair adjacent to the fireplace may hold more answers than Spencer's personal belongings, which include pictures of her grandchildren framed on the fireplace mantle, and a watercolour painting of a cat that suspiciously resembles the feline that darted under the couch when Logan, Kelly and Ina first set foot inside, and has been cowering there since.
The double-paned windows do little to block out the sound of traffic below, or the bass resonating through the building despite the fact that its source is the nightclub across the street, a line leaking out the doors for half a block around the corner.
It is 11:23 PM on a crystal clear Friday night.
Currently, Logan is kneeling a little like a gargoyle over the laptop, trusting the two ladies he is with to keep. You know. A look out, or whatever. His hands are in fine, Italian leather gloves, thin enough and well-fitted enough not to hinder his typing as the glow from the screen reflects off the satin blend in his shirt, gone with funeral chic as he sometimes does in black suit and accessories, save for a faint grey pinstripe adding detail to his ensemble. The reality is, he shouldn't be here — in Las Vegas, that is.
In New Zealand, the warrior tribes had a superstition. Some of them. To jump during the battle rituals was to curse yourself, because it made the territory beneath your feet available for stealing when you were no longer standing upon it. He feels a little like that, regarding the broken city of New York. But here he is, anyway.
If Kain had not sneered so much at Logan's choice of ally in Robert Caliban, he probably wouldn't even be here. Find someone who doesn't have shit to do, he might have said.
Takatakata.
Gloves. Leather gloves. This isn't Ina's forte, but when you're instructed to jump, you inquire politely how high and for how long you are to be jumping. In this case, it was jump all the way back to Nevada with Logan and Kelly, enjoy a few days, break into a woman's home and participate in a little wetworks.
So Ina made sure to bring along some gloves. Be awfully stupid to end her career with a fingerprint. A handheld police scanner, an earbud in her ear so she can listen to detect whether they might have cops arriving to interrupt the information hunt and elimination, Ina loiters near the front door, just behind it in the off chance that there might be some erstwhile neighbour with a doogooder attitude.
While Logan is in funeral chic, Kelly is in assassin chic. Which is highly appropriate, all things considered. Black pants, black jacket, dark hair pulled up, black gloves. And of course a pretty little black pistol with a black silencer. She's all ready for her end of things. Or at least the end of her end of things.
While Logan is checking out the laptop, Kelly is moving quietly through the apartment, making sure that it is just the one bedroom, and nodding slightly when it is. Then she glances out to Logan, arching a brow, before looking back to the bedroom, moving closer, with slow, careful steps. It would be silly to have it all ruined now because of a squeaky board!
Ina is well-versed in the special language the police dispatchers in Las Vegas use. What might be just a number to Kelly or Logan has the potential to translate to a life behind bars if the trio isn't careful. Fortunately, at least one of them has made a living with bloodied hands to qualify as a professional, and there's nothing about the situation that strikes Kelly as unusually dangerous.
Risky, yes, but to an extent all jobs of this nature are.
What Ina hears first isn't a tinny warning squawk, but the sound of footsteps in the carpeted hallway outside. Heels on carpet. The jangling of keys being fished from a knockoff designer handbag.
to: b.bishop
from: i.spencerbob,
in regards to your last message: yes, I do. but carefully. the whispers aren't whispers anymore when I can hear them from all the way over here. I don't think I'm assuming anything when I say that neither of us want a repeat of what happened last year.
- iris
Logan isn't an expert in much — this include surveillance, hits, and intel gathering. He's gotten rid of bodies, put bullets in people, stolen things, but you learn stuff sometimes, through survival. As it happens, he's not sure the best way to get relevant information out of this machine — but emails seem like a valid way to start. He reads quickly, glances at the bag he brought with, which contains some rope as well as an extra clip for the gun he's holding, although he better not require it.
Or the rope, for that matter. "How we looking, ladies?" is quiet query as he goes to virtually backtrack out from email account, making a quirk and dirty scan through folders. He doesn't immediately hear anything amiss, but he is not the languidly relaxed businessman they know him as, all tension and alertness.
Well, possibility that Iris might be arriving home. "I think the lady of the house is coming. Either this apartment or across the hall, given that it sounds like heels on carpet and there's keys in palm" Ina relays quietly to the other two, hoping that they at least have a plan for the woman coming home sooner than they had maybe intended. "No police, yet. Careful for any pepper spray. You know us ladies" Mace in a can is popular and Ina's slipping back behind the door in wait.
With someone coming to the door, Kelly is moving, before the words are fully out of Ina's mouth. Though Ina didn't warn about company, safe is better than sorry, and she moves towards the bedroom, since it has plenty of places to avoid being seen in case there is company.
Keys turn in the lock, and a moment later the door is swinging open, admitting a smallish, slightly overweight woman into its frame. She squeezes through, deposits her handbag on the stand next to the hook upon which she hangs her coat, and then glances toward her laptop. Had Logan not been swifter, she'd find more than the power light blinking a pale, ominous blue.
Iris turned off the computer before she left the house. It shouldn't be powering down and going to sleep now. She reaches up with her left hand and tangles her fingers in blonde hair mixed with strands of gray as she tracks her eyes across the living room with the baleful expression of a deer that's scented fox on the wind but for whatever reason does not spring away. Leaves the door yawning open behind her instead, stepping past Ina's concealed figure, and crouches down to check under the couch, not for any sign of intruders, but for her cat, which lets out a low, plaintive maow.
Logan winds up in the kitchen. He hadn't really been looking — just went for the closest available doorway and darted in, taking things that did not belong to the apartment with. Gggently does it, he sets back down the pragmatic bag he'd taken, and eases gun out of the holster from beneath his jacket. A stainless steel knife holder gleams and catches his eye, more of something to remember should the fat lady come this way and should he not be swift enough. For now, he only waits, just next to the door with his back to the wall, listening keenly.
One hand reaches out, fingers pressing silently to the front door and closes it with the gentlest of motions, fingers reaching to turn the locks one by one with a definative and audible thunk and rattle. She'll play distraction. She's the more known of the trio, formerly from here.
"Oh Iris" Ina shakes her head, dark curls shifting left then right as she lets a pitiful look pass across her face. "Your Cat is fine. Really. She hasn't much taken to me. You should really invest in a security system. Locks can be easily overcome, especially in this town. I learned that in New York. How are you Iris? You seem to have gained a few pounds" Ina indicates where on her own body, forefinger circling around her own midriff. "Haven't been to the gym lately? Too busy?"
Ina isn't the only one formerly of Vegas. Though that doesn't help Kelly much right now. The distraction, however, does. She moves quickly, drawing her gun and coming up behind Iris, catching her off-guard enough that an arm can be slid around the woman's neck. That arm is tightened enough that it's hard to speak or even breathe, but not impossible. And if she still has thoughts of screaming? Well, the barrel of the gun that's soon pressed against her back should take care of those.
"You really don't want to scream, Iris. Because I could make this very unpleasant for you. Answer my friend's questions, and you won't suffer," she whispers. Which is true. A shot right between the eyes doesn't hurt long enough to suffer. Really.
Although Iris might not have been smart enough to check the condo for intruders before checking under the couch for her beloved cat, she's smart enough to make the distinction between you won't suffer and you won't be hurt. She makes a strangled noise at the back of her throat and hooks fingernails under the arm hooked around it, and instinctively kicks out with her leg to brace herself against the back of the couch, one of her shoulders digging into the softest part of Kelly's breast.
To her credit, she does not scream, and the only accusations she makes are with her eyes, directed at Ina.
Lingering while the sounds of the drama going on in the other room continue, Logan bides his time while the messy part of this confrontation is handled. (The messy part being the complicated part, not— messy messy.) He lets out a soft snort at the words that babble on the other side of the wall, before he steps into the scenario, all long-limbed in his black attire with the unmistakable shape of the firearm in one hand, with its overextended muzzle.
There is no doubt, in his mind, that Kelly can handle the lady. He glances towards Ina in a sort of re-greeting, coming to stand calmly in the most of the apartment. When his eyes light up in a vivid version of their green, the cloying feeling of chemical happy wars with and tries to dampen the adrenaline her body is producing. At this range, without his hands on her, it's not all-consuming.
He is, however, peeling off a glove. "Doctor Spencer," he addresses sharply. Primly. "Do you know who we are?"
Inclination of head, satisfied, a slight wince for what Iris is attempting to do to Kelly and a sigh. Doesn't matter what class anyone is from, an arm around the neck always seems to incur the wrath of ones legs kicking. The glow of Logans eyes signify his ability into play and the floor manager just diverts three quarters of her attention to the scanner.
Though there's a small wince as the shoulder digs into tender flesh, Kelly isn't inclined to release the woman. If anything, her arm tightens further for a moment, and the barrel of her own pistol digs into the woman's back, almost certainly painful. But, for now, she lets Logan continue the chat. He's the charmer, she's just the hired gun.
The sharp intake of breath that hisses through Iris' nostrils is either the most visible effect Logan's ability has on the middle-aged woman's portly body, or the sound of recognition. Her eyes widen around the edges, more white than iris, round and bulging as they roll back into her head and she forces her lids down like cheap shutters snapped down across a window.
"I know who she is," she says of Ina, lipstick smudging across slightly yellowed teeth when she peels her mouth back around a gasp. "Robert send you?"
Logan's approach is a bit like being wary of a bucking horse, uninclined to stand directly before her and more sidling to the side as that bare hand finds the woman's wrist in a strong clasp. Now, his ability can really kick in, encouraging surreal warmth, hysterical giddiness. It can have negative effects, sometimes, in that sometimes, people don't need encouragement. But often enough, bliss is highly addictive. "Caliban? No," is a direct lie, calmly spoken. Likely not to protect Robert.
The woman's gonna die, anyway. So there's probably a more immediate reason. "What makes you think that?" His thumb smooths an almost tender gesture along the underside of her wrist. "We're here for ourselves."
A roll of eyes when Ina's fingered as familiar and a slight scoff. That was a given. No rising to the bait of whether it was Caliban or another who had directed them towards Las Vegas and to the good Doctor Spencer or not. Just a finger to the earbud resting in her ear and a glance to the door to keep up her part of the vigil.
Not knowing Logan's ability, Kelly keeps a firm hold on the woman, arm and pistol remaining exactly where they are. Her arm is loosened, just a touch, just enough to let the woman speak with Logan. But it's clear she's prepared to choke Iris if necessary, or to fire the gun; it's angle changed subtlely so that if firing is necessary, she won't hit anyone but Iris.
Laughter bubbles up out of Iris' nose and mouth. A twitch of her wrist tries to wrest it from Logan's grasp, but a butterfly like the one on her refrigerator would have better luck forcing its way out of his fist through the gaps between his fingers. "I don't make a lot of enemies doing what I do," she tells him, her voice growing thin and almost whimsical, "but I have a long list of clients, and a lot of secrets. What do you want? I know my work when I see it, remember everything.
"You're not one of mine."
"No," Logan agrees, and his highlit green stare shifts from her face towards Kelly's, for a second, though he doesn't share with her conspiring glance, or signal. He's thinking, which is something he tends to do without speaking, as if such faculties required shut down of other ones, such as his mouth. To his credit, decision doesn't take very long, and he jerks his hand from the woman's wrist like he suddenly realised it was burning him.
He paces back a few steps, mostly because he doesn't want anything on him. "Kill 'er," is the order, which is a little like closing the book before it's been read all the way through, but this is neither the time nor the place to share. Probably.
You're not one of mine. What was that supposed to mean. Ina's hand dips to the modest sized purse at her size and the gun held within, producing it. Not that Kelly won't finish the job, but worse and strange things can happen. Call it, back up if you will, in case Iris decides she's got some nerve somewhere in her to try and make a break for it.
Some people might argue with such a command, either on principle or because of a need to do something else first. Kelly? She's not one of those people. She's the weapon, not the planner, and she's fine with that. There's no hesitation before Kelly turns slightly, trying to turn Iris with her, and the pistol is moved from the woman's back to the side of her head. Then with a soft, sharp sound, too mild for the physical insult it causes, a bullet ends the poor woman's life, and she slumps in Kelly's arms.
The woman is dropped, and Kelly checks her arms, making sure she didn't get scratched in the brief struggle. DNA is bad. "Did you get what you needed off the computer?" she asks, looking to Logan.
"More or less." Eyes back to watery pale, Logan glances from Kelly to Ina as he opens his jacket and replaces gun within the open nosed holster, the weapon heavy against his ribs and not one hundred percent concealed beneath the flap of pinstriped worsted wool. Moving off towards the kitchen, he hitches up backpack to sling over his shoulder. "Mostly questions. Can we go? I've got at least one blackjack table with my name on it before I'm to catch the free plane ride home."
"Kelly, go steal something" Ina gestures towards the bedroom. "Jewelry, something easy to dump off on some homeless man I'd say take the computer, the but I don't have a purse big enough. Then you can get going to your blackjack table." She's tempted to drive back to New York, a little worried that they'll get fingered if all three of them head back to New York on the plane. Ina's jaw tightens, looking to the now lifeless body of Iris Spencer, searching for some difference between living and dead that didn't have to do with a lack of a beating heart before she looks to the front door again, setting to undoing the locks.
Kelly shrugs and hides her pistol away. "I've got no reason to stay. And it's time for my post-kill routine anyway." She has a post-kill routine? Ina gets a long, flat look, then she shrugs again. "Fine. But for future reference, I'm an assassin, not a thief." Because clearly one is better than the other. She searches the body first, taking any jewelry or cash, before doing the same in the bedroom.
A turquoise necklace, sterling silver watch and a wallet with twenty-five dollars and some change isn't worth very much. Worth considerably more: the gold earrings, matching necklace dotted with pearls and a retired wedding band and engagement ring kept in a mother-of-pearl jewelry box in the master bath. Tomorrow evening, Iris Spencer's distraught daughter will appear on the local news and insist that none of these objects were equal in value to her mother's life, and although the police will agree, it's unlikely that they will find anything particularly suspect about the crime scene.
Even though Las Vegas is on the other side of the country, the frequency of home invasions have gone up in recent years since the bomb, and with it so have the number of senseless killings.
That Linderman has more than a quarter of the LVPD on his payroll may also have something to do with the casual treatment the story will ultimately receive from the media, but no one has to know that, least of all the three women already halfway across the country.
By the time Niki Sanders, Barbara Simms and Monica Dawson arrive to question Iris about her relationship with Bob Bishop and any information she might be in possession of that could help Endgame in its quest to overthrow Daniel Linderman's empire, they'll be too late and will have to ask the coroner instead.