Participants:
| Scene Title | Subtle |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Deckard is distracted from his vigorous search for Evolved PARIAH terrorists who might be hiding in Exotica by Pam. She gets to meet Wu-Long, who is polite and only wants information. No body parts. Felix dutifully makes sure nobody dies and refuses to have sex with Flint, even after he buys him a drink. Pam says the bathrooms are too dirty. People these days are so high maintenance. |
| Date | November 19, 2008 |
Deckard has showered and taken the time to shave — at least enough that he's back at 'unkempt' status again, as opposed to 'homeless chia pet.' His suit is light grey, the shirt beneath that, light blue. If he could find a way to mask the dark hollows around his eyes without wearing sunglasses inside he might almost pass for a normal human being. As things are, he passes for a sick-looking human being who drinks too much and has had some trouble sleeping. He sits at a table by himself around his usual spot, not actually all that close to the dancers, and is currently busy carving his coaster into a snowflake with a switchblade while he waits for his next drink to be brought out.
Pam comes into the club from the out-of-doors, where she presumably wears normal clothes. Because that is what she is wearing right now: jeans, a t-shirt, a lined jacket. She waves to the lady behind the bar. Maybe she's not even recognizable without the eyeliner, eyeshadow, lipstick, and skank clothes, but Deckard looks about the same as he always does, so she heads his way. "You look like hell, pumpkin."
Fortunately Deckard has ways of recognizing people that go a little deeper than make-up. And flesh. The lack of ho clothes does throw him, but things click into place quickly enough once he's taken a second or two to squint about the region of her head. "Pumpkin's my stripper name," he tells her once a fresh whiskey has been clonked down in front of him and the old one removed. "I think I told you my real name was Mike."
"Right, Mike," Pam says, resting her elbows on the table and leaning over. "Aww, you made the coaster pretty. You okay, though? Seriously, you look like hell."
"Never been better." Recalling the coaster in his hand when she comments on it, Deckard turns it over once before setting his knife back into one of the deeper angles. He's at a table by himself some distance from the stage but close to the bar, with a relatively chaste-looking young woman resting her elbows on his table. "Are you incognito as someone not a stripper?"
"My shift hasn't started yet," Pam tells Deckard. The knife is eyed. "Could you maybe put that away, hon? And not in a person? It's a little bit scary." She is, indeed, dressed as a normal young woman. With jeans. And sneakers, even. Her backpack likely contains the stripper gear.
"I'm making a snowflake." Snowflakes aren't scary. Or at least, they aren't supposed to be. Deckard's artistic talent is limited, so. It could just be a random circle shape with jags and square holes cut into it. Still, he pauses in his cutting and looks her over, then thumbs the blade closed. "If I stabbed someone they wouldn't let me back in. And then what would I do with all my free time?"
"Learn Portuguese?" is Pam's immediate answer, with a smile. He put the knife away. That's good! "Portuguese is very helpful if you're going to Portugal, but I don't know how useful it is otherwise. So maybe some Japanese."
"I don't have any plans to go to Portugal," confirmed while he tucks the knife onto his belt, Deckard tosses the shredded coaster to the other side of the table so that he can pick up his whiskey instead. "And I don't know any Japanese people. You've got foreigners on the brain. That sort of thing turn you on or something?"
"…No," Pam tells Deckard, with a bit of a rueful expression. This is what she gets for talking to strip club guys. She's dressed normally, which is unusual for her in here, and she's resting her elbows on Deck's table which is closer to the bar than the stage and leaning in to talk to him. "If I say I'd like to travel, do your eyes glaze over?"
Occasionally, Wu-Long does the pedestrian thing and… walks. With tangible feet. Through doorways, even. The dark light and husky breath of air-conditioning raise the hairs on his nape as he does so, the panels of his leather coat swinging with a throaty whisper as he paces inward. His eyes make short work of distance and the thin crowd, selecting Deckard out of a trickle of faces, before marking the blonde beside him. Electronic devices had betrayed the man's location.
His laziness, also. While one would suppose that terrorists have as human needs as the next alcoholic schmuck Vanguard's putting its elbow into, 'humanity' isn't something Kazimir tends to assign to the Evolved, and so you have it. Flint Deckard is in good company. Wu-Long sets his feet toward the man, tucking his hands into his pockets, and walks toward the bar with a pleasantly blank smile; the sort one gives to recent acquaintances. They are.
And right behind him is Felix. Still battered and stitched on one side of his face, though he's doing what he can to negate that limp. He's in one of those impeccably tailored suits, no glasses, He heads for where a dark-haired man with severe features is apparently holding court in one of the larger booths. Must be some sort of gangster. The Fed's expression is one of barely contained anger.
Deckard is looking about as undead as he has for the last week now, with some improvement having come in the form of a shave, a shower, and a fresh suit. He's only had one drink, but he's started on his second by the time Wu-Long hits the bar. It's bad timing, see, because it's right about the time Pam asks about his eyes glazing over, and suddenly he's staring straight through her without any indication that he's heard. Shit.
Pam blinks and cracks a smile. "Nice," she tells him. "That's spot on." A nod, and then she thinks a moment and turns her head to look over her shoulder at whatever Deckard might be looking at. "Uh. Mike?"
"No," Wu-Long answers the woman, kindly. It takes him a quaver-beat longer to shift his eyes to her; this gaze had strayed momentarily toward the roadkill in the suit beelining over to some adjacent booth, automatically gauging balance, cadence of stride, the lines of Felix's shoulders, determining whether or not the man knew how to handle himself. Pam has his attention in its entirety the next moment.
"Xiao jie," he greets. His tone is courteous: one would perhaps go so far as to presume he didn't just cuss her out. "I was hoping to have a word with your friend. Would you mind giving us a moment of privacy?" His accent, though faint, leaves little doubt that English is his second language. His words don't quite end right. Wu-Long's face is as blasé as Deckard's— isn't.
Felix doesn't exactly swagger like a gunslinger, but the trained eye will note that that suit is tailored not just to flatter but also to hide the bulge of a pistol under one arm. Deckard and floozy don't get so much as a glance, and he slips into the edge of that booth and starts speaking in Russian. Issuing orders in a faintly contemptuous voice, by the sound of things. The dark-haired man merely stares at him for a moment, affronted…..but then something Felix says has him breaking into deep-voiced laughter that sound like a wolf's bark, and claps him on the shoulder. Fel merely offers a faint smile in return.
How to look like you're working while sitting at a table alone and a strip club. Deckard looks to his table and the scraps of coaster scattered across it. Nothing helpful there, so. He's left to pass Pam a look that might qualify as pleading in the millisecond before he turns his focus down past Felix's wheeling and dealing, onto his whiskey. "Cockney should tie a bell around your neck."
Pam glances at Deckard and blinks. What? This is just odd. "Well, puddin', we're right in the middle of somethin'," she tells Wu-Long in a kind of dippy tone as she climbs into the seat across from Deckard's. Flex and the laughing Russian are given a glance as well.
Wu-Long has never really understood the ordinary human compulsion to delay the inevitable. Actually, that would be a lie. He's constantly doing that, he's merely motivated by forces somewhat above — or below — those that register to the average civilian. Apparently neither Pamela nor Deckard fit easily into that category. The corners of his mouth deepen, and he slides sideways into the boothe beside Pamela. "I won't be long," he promises. "I just need some contact information.
"I know you're busy," he gestures at the establishment around them with a perfectly deadpan expression, mostly because 'earnest' is too hard. "So I was going to get in touch with Kain for you. I have a pen." And paper, too, apparently: he summons both out of some unimaginable compartment of coat, despite that his own garment wasn't tailored for anything so specific.
There's a set of what's apparently negotiations - Fel's a little more cheerful now, and there's banter. But then one of the goons by the darkhaired man asks a pointed question, apparently about Felix's injuries, and the Fed's answer has both the capo and his guards going still and wary. Fel's gone impassive again, expression bland. "You know I don't deal with such people. Ordinary humans with guns are more than enough trouble for an old man like me. Nevermind that comic book stuff," says the darkhaired man, finally dropping into English, forcing a casual grin. "Of course," Fel says, smoothly. "Thank you for your time. I'll give my mother your regards." With that, he rises, inclines his head in polite farewell, and heads for the bar, a little more slowly.
Deckard sits up a little straighter when Wu-Long slides in next to Pam, somewhere between a flinch and an aborted impulse that ends only in slightly less irresponsible posture. If anything it just makes him more uneasy — enough so that he just nods when the pen and paper sally forth across the table. "Did you have anything specific you needed to talk to him about?" Whiskey set aside, he sets to writing. Kain Zarek, 30-40, cajun, needs a haircut. Keeps large scary men, guns, and a baseball bat for company. Organized crime connections, involved with the Linderman Group. And then the phone number, which he has to dig out of his wallet, first. He tries very hard not to look at Pam or Felix all the while. Doot de doot doo, perfectly innocent, here.
Pam has a tiny bit of self-preservation, for a civilian; she doesn't look at the paper; she just clears her throat and busies herself looking up at one of the disco balls hanging from the ceiling as it rotates, throwing shimmery shards of light onto those down below. These guys? A little scary.
Out of his peripheral, he notices that Pamela isn't looking. Smart girl. Also, that Felix is getting up, somewhere toward the further part of the room. "More contacts," he answers truthfully enough. "If even you would recommend him," which, technically, Flint did, "that's solid praise." Flattery. He will try it. Earnest and freshly warmed by the cockles of his heart.
Apparently Fel's off-duty enough to get himself a drink - some concoction of gin and lime. At least it's sippable, rather than something you have to knock back like vodka. He still gives no sign of having noted Deckard.
There is a lot of not looking at things and people going on, which does marvellous things for the tension clenching over the furrow of Deckard's brow while he writes. Wu-Long's 'compliment' elicits a forced, flat smile, and he keeps on scratching chickens. The sum total of the information is punctuated with a smiley face, and he pushes it back across the table under the flat of one hand. "Have fun."
"Well, wasn't that nice," Pam says, far-too-pleasantly. "We all good here?"
Callused fingers tamp down on the edge of the paper, and slide it back to where its owner is sitting. Wu-Long takes enough time to rotate the note upside down and glance over it, once, before he folds it up under a thumb, long digits, tucks it into his coat. He inclines his head. "Xie xie. Thank you both for your time." Rising from his seat, he goes so far as it offer a fist closed briefly in the other, a polite Confucian obeisance.
He swivels on a heel, hands in his pockets, and proceeds to take his leave. As he passes Felix, he offers a pleasant bob of his head; his eyes linger only briefly on the concealed compartments under the arms of the man's suit, a subtler equivalent of a nudge and a wink. His footfalls stop making noise as soon as he's past the Russian.
Felix glances up from his contemplation of his gimlet, and nods politely in return. There's no recognition evident in the blue eyes, but nor is he yet fogged with drink.
Deckard sits very still once the paper is taken, tipping only the faintest of nods to Wu-Long's subdued farewell. He watches him go, not blinking until he's past Felix, and not remembering to breathe until he's a little further than that. Somewhere, a shaky sigh blows hollow over whatever white noise had been collecting from the club in the seconds prior. "Sorry."
Pam leans over a little more, eyes wide, and murmurs to Deckard, "I don't wanna know, do I? You okay?"
Felix watches Wu-Long go with….well, open curiosity, honestly. And a faint frown, before he dismisses it with a shake of his head.
"You really don't." The next breath he draws in is more solid, and Deckard drums his left hand once against the table. Whiskey. He has it. Things could be worse. "I still have all my fingers and toesies. Waitress! A cosmo for the fed."
"Um," says Pamela, eloquently, "…Fed?"
Oh, it's pink. Which has Felix absentmindedly giving Deckard the finger.
An unsubtle Felixwards tip of Deckard's head points out the fed in question. The finger makes him a little easier to pick out. "I think he's undercover. Don't tell anyone."
"It's a very bad undercover," Pam whispers. "It's like I suddenly stepped into The Sopranos or something. Aw, hell." She leans back in her seat. Is this a mob thing? HELLLL NO.
Felix picks up his cosmo, but does not drink from it, and saunters over to Deckard with complete aplomb. It's set down before Pam. "I think the waitress got a little confused," he says, graciously. "Still too busy to pick up your toy, Deck?"
"I think the Sopranos have better benefits." Flint drinks. The rest of his glass drained in one long swallow, he looks haggard again by the time Felix has made his way over to push his present off on Pam. "What's it look like, Officer?"
Pam eyes the Cosmo. "This is a girly drink," she declares, like there's no reason it should end up in front of her. "Howdy."
"Figured it might be better suited to you," Fel deadpans. "And yes, you look terribly busy."
"This is Honeysuckle." Flint settles one side of his long face into the upturn of his palm and lifts his brows at the cosmo. He's blown so much money on those things. "I think you've met once before. She was more exposed."
Pam wriggles her fingers at Felix, still not picking up the drink. She really does not need to be soused while gyrating on ridiculous heels. "I work here. Not on for a while yet, though. Nice to meet you again."
"A pleasure," Felix says, with one of those cool smiles, as he seats himself, uninvited.
Aaand Deckard starts to look uncomfortable again. The tendons in his neck stand out, his face turns away, he becomes interested in the scatter of his earlier craftwork across the table. Pam is safe enough to get a glance, if a hooded one, but he's quick to look down again. "Want to go have sex in the bathroom?"
Felix arches a brow. "I'm not your type," he says, still deadpan.
"I don't even wanna go to the bathroom in these bathrooms," Pam tells Deckard, reaching over to gently pat his hand.
"I'm glad we're both on the same page there, Ivanov." Irritation writes itself into the lines around Deckard's mouth, but the accompanying dirty look is spent down on his glass. Handpats offer no real solace. He sighs again. "Fine."
"You've got my number. Call me," Fel says, simply, as he rises again.
"I thought you said he wasn't your type?" Pam asks with a faint smile that's attempting to be impish and kind of falling short.
"It's not gay if there's no penetration, right?" The question is asked with distressing earnestness. Distressing, perhaps, because he's still a little strained when Felix rises from the table.
"Even I can do with a bit of rough now and then," Fel says, entirely deadpan. "No, it still is. Later, Deck."
 November 19th: This Way |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 November 19th: The Blunter Side |