Participants:
Scene Title | The Notebook |
---|---|
Synopsis | A young woman comes to the coastal town of Seabrook, North Carolina in the 1940's Conrad swings by Deckard's place to scheme only to find that the asshole is bugged. BUGGED. They have two conversations. One is in the notebook full of dirt Deckard's collected on everyone even remotely associated with PARIAH. Ops! |
Date | November 18, 2008 |
"Boomboomboomboomboom!" comes the toe of a shoe kicking the bottom of the door. It's how Conrad always knocks. He doesn't do that wussy little knuckle-rapping thing, and anyway the door-kick always seems to carry better. "It's Con!" he calls from the hallway, announcing who it is at the door. Then he takes to crossing his arms and standing away from the door in the hallway, looking up and down the way just in case somebody needs a what're-you-lookin'-at look.
Boomboomboomboomboom indeed. Deckard rolls sideways off the couch and onto the floor, the dead THUMP of body to carpet clearly audible through the door. Somehow he manages to land on his back without hitting the pair of wood crates that serve as a coffee table. The gun he was sleeping with isn't so lucky — it clatters across one and then the other before slipping off the edge and into a conspicuous gift basket. Conspicuous because…he's Flint. And he has a gift basket. The apartment is unlit, so the first thing to do once he's finished cursing is flip the nearest light switch. Gun collected, he hobbles to the door, squints at Conrad directly through it, and turns the lock. "What time is it?"
Briefly Con checks his watch and says, "It's seven. At night. And it's November. Two thousand eight." It takes someone like Conrad to account for these things. He deals with people like this more than most. He'd be sarcastic about wanting to be let in, but any idiot can hear the lock turning, so he waits.
"Fuck." Groggy, irritable, and sporting shadows under his eyes about one shade short of undead, Flint drags the door open. Accommodating. That's him. Rather than stand there and wait to close and relock it, he walks back for the kitchenette, decidedly informal in plaid pajama pants and a grey t-shirt that says MIT on it. Somehow it seems likely that the latter doesn't actually belong to him.
Conrad just lets himself in and locks the door behind him. For his part he's in a Mets jacket with loose jeans and a t-shirt. His wardrobe seems to contain nearly every sports team's apparel from every sport. Every day it's something different. "So," he begins, looking around at the place and noting the spartan nature of things. "I heard you're asking stupid questions at Helena Dean. Or about her group." Yeah he'll start off with that, voice full of infectuous cheer.
Deckard stops there, right hand braced against the kitchen counter while that takes a minute to sink in. "I've never heard of Helena Dean," grated to the refrigerator, he pushes his left hand into the bridge of his nose. Trying to make his brain go faster, maybe. The pause that follows is too long anyway. In the end, he turns and lifts his shirt, which would be a lot weirder if he didn't do it to expose the off-white undershirt beneath. And more significantly, the narrow trace of a black wire that buds into a tiny microphone at the collar.
"Oh. My mistake." Oh, he believes Flint, sure he does. At least he knows why he disbelieves the guy. Con walks across the room with a 'WTF' expression on his face, pointing at the other man's torso and presumably the wire. "Buddy, you gotta lay off the juice. When's the last time you took a shower?" Casually he makes a gesture of writing on his palm. Got something to write on?
"She a hooker? I met one named Patricia the other night, but it didn't work out." Deckard forces a flat smile, grimly matter-of-fact, and drops the shirt again to push for the bookshelf. A spiral notebook is dragged off of an encyclopedia, small and black, which he tosses back across the room at Conrad. There's a pen already jammed down into the wind of the wire. "No juice. Tried cocaine for the first time yesterday, though. I don't recommend it."
"Holy shit…" mutters Con, getting the pen and scribbling on the notebook once he opens it. "You can afford coke? That shit'll set you back a lot harder than legal stuff. Stick with booze, I'm tellin you." There's absolutely no sound of pen scratching on paper, or even paper itself rustling as Con handles the notebook. And there probably should be. He opens the page to show it to Flint. It reads: Whose wire?
Then Con hands the notebook and pen over.
Don't know. Bad guys. Not the cops.
Deckard writes quickly, compactly, and with a squint that ends in him holding the notebook further away to double check his work before he starts to hand it over, only to hesitate. "Not enough. And now I feel like steamrolled shit and have been asleep for the last eleven hours, so."
Bald Cockney, Psychotic Asian Guy, Pale Guy. Sound familiar?
That added on, he hands the book back and paces back into his kitchen.
On the book Conrad writes: Nope, dunno em. Evos?
He holds up the notebook waiting for a nod or shake of the head to answer his written question, and says, "But naw, Helen's that owner of the new titty bar in Queens. You know, the one used to be a Stuckey's or something? I didn't even know they had Stuckey's up here. Maybe it wasn't Stuckey's." Well, this just makes everything stupid. Frustrated, he writes: How am I supposed to talk to you when you got wired, asshole?
"I've been doing the Exotica lately. One of the girls let me wear her hat." Exciting times in the life of Flint Deckard. He drags a carton of milk out of the fridge and winds back into the living area as he pries the top open, brow furrowed after the latest couple of questions.
Conrad gets a pissy look, and he takes the pen without taking the pad to scrawl: Some of them. P.S. Fuck you. If you met these assholes you'd be wearing it too.
"Her hat? What the fuck's that mean? Is that a euphemism I missed or something or did she really have a hat?" Con snatches the pen back and writes: Tell me how get you out of this cuz I need you for something.
They're such warm friends. And this time Con hands the notebook and pen back.
Milk. Deckard drinks it from the carton. One of the many pluses of being a miserable old bastard and living by yourself. "It means she had a hat. With sequins or…glitter. I don't fucking know. Is the new place any good?" He leans to set the carton down on the nearest crate and takes the pad back with a scowl that twitches up only marginally as he reads. And writes.
I'd have to disappear. They've found me twice, in two different apartments. Serious shit.
"Yeah actually. Pretty swank." replies Con in the tone one pervert uses with another. He casually takes the pad back, turns the page, and writes: Any idea how they find you? Evo powers?
He's underlined 'evo powers'.
Teleportation.
That one gets a sad face.
& Something with shadows or smoke. Somehow they figured out I was evolved on their own. Seem to know when I'm lying.
The fact that Deckard seems intent on bothering with semi-full sentences means he's slow, but he's also pushing the pen pretty hard down into the paper. Stress, much?
"I'm busy until Thursday, but free after that."
Because they're probably going to kill me.
He hands the pad back.
"Sweet. Well tell you what, I'll swing by Friday and pick you up. We'll hit it. How's that sound?" Con asks, grinning, as he writes: I'll try to help. Can't promise. Any idea what they want?
Curiously, Conrad takes a moment to flip through the rest of the notebook to see if anything else in there is important or if their little secret conversation is the only thing in it just yet before he hands it back.
The first chunk of information consists mostly of numbers. Phone numbers, prices, addresses, dates. Gun models, ammunition shipments, his checking account. Whatever. Closer to the conversation, names and notes on said names take precedence.
Abigail Beauchamp, healer, 20s, blonde, terminally religious, possible PARIAH affiliations. Worked at The Nite Owl.
Brian Fulk, creates duplicates, 20s, brown hair, unshaven. Possible maximum of four total Brians. Works at The Night Owl. Possible PARIAH affiliations.
Magnes J. Varlane, climbs walls, 20s, delivery boy.
And so on and so forth. It's a little creepy. Deckard lifts a brow as he watches Conrad flip through the notebook…not quite apologetic. Maybe something close. "Sounds great."
Briefly Conrad writes in the book: Want me to make this disappear? Since you're gonna be dead and all…
He adds audibly, "Welp. Might as well get going. I'll let you get back to being alone with your pet cockroaches."
Fingernails scraped audibly over the scruff at his jaw, Deckard eyes Conrad, and then the notebook. Hesitation reads clear in the blank of his expression and stiffness about his shoulders. He reaches for the book. "No cockroaches. Had a cleaning service come by a couple of nights ago. Made the bed and everything."
If I don't have anything for them when they come, I'm fucked.
Strain bleaches out the tendons in the back of his hand. He scribbles out a frustrated ball of black lines, and then: Burn it. Fuck. Help me. I'm haunting you if I die.
Conrad reads that, manages to look conflicted as he thinks it over. "Seriously? I didn't know you even had a bed." He writes: Just lay off this one. You didn't find anything out about her. Ok?
Then he taps a finger on Abigail Beauchamp's name. And proceeds to tear out just the pages they've written on tonight in an eerie silence, almost like it's not happening because the tearing paper doesn't emit a noise. He doesn't look like he'll be taking any of the rest of the notes with him.
Deckard flinches when Conrad points out Abigail's name. Mild, but there. He nods anyway, glaring at his couch rather than Conrad while pages are stripped out of his book with no sound at all. "Fuck you."
Con's completely nonchalant about the expletive. It's an endearment anyway in this context. So he tucks the confiscated (and potentially incriminating) papers in his jacket, then sets the notebook otherwise intact back on Deckard's couch. "Later, Flint!" he calls, unlocking the door to let himself out of the apartment and leave.
"Later." Deckard watches Conrad out in rigid silence. A sideways glance reminds him of the milk, so. He reaches for that, mainly to have something to do with his hands while the other man lets himself out, then leans to flip the light switch off. No reason to pay for electricity you don't actually need. He'll get the lock in a minute.
November 18th: Of Footlongs and Terrorists |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
November 18th: Different People, Different Needs |