To See A Pimp

Participants:

kain2_icon.gif logan_icon.gif

Scene Title To See A Pimp
Synopsis After his meeting, Kain goes to see someone who is in the painting.
Date June 6, 2010

Dorchester Towers


On the tail end of the extended winter, Logan's apartment is no closer to feeling lived in than it was before — having stayed at the Corinthian throughout the bulk of the blizzards, his bachelor pad is well-preserved, anonymous and fashionably empty. Boasts the kind of lifestyle where staying at home for more than a few hours every day would be an unusual and likely depressing turn of events, with his fridge mainly containing beer and his pantry containing an inexplicable bag of baking soda. The walls are white, the furniture is variably glass and black and silver, and the windows have curtains drawn against a New York evening.

As simplistically bare as his apartment is, Logan is a bright spot, long limbed figure lounging upon the blockish black leather couch with an arm cushioning his head against the raised edge, feet braced against the other. The thermostats turned right up to accommodate the fact he is dressed mostly in red satin tied at the waist. That he happens to be armed is another matter.

Dinner of champions— red wine and a lit cigarette— are his current companions, radio playing too dim to really hear and the morning paper spread out in his lap.

That people should knock when entering the home of another person is only common courtesy. That Kain Zarek was raised on the worst streets of New Orleans and knows little of both common courtesy or common decency likely has something to do with why the blonde cajun has found himself walking into John Logan's apartment without so much as a ding-dong of the doorbell or a knuckle-dusting of the door. That he's come with presents has nothing to do with fondness for Logan either, mostly just fond necessity.

"You might wanna' put some pants on, Hef," Kain grouses from the doorway to the living room, the sharp outline of his broad-shouldered frame made crisp by the vertical lines ofhis pin-stripe suit. That he's carrying a brown-paper wrapped painting under one arm seems a little unusual, but at the very least he can say he came baring gifts, even if it goes unsaid specifically.

Distinctly underdressed but not unprepared, Logan gives a full bodied start and all at once, there's a silver revolver pointed somewhere around Kain's midsection, gripped one handledly and steady despite the slight wild roundness to his eyes. Then, his grip wavers, aim lowering, and he rests his head back against the arm of the couch, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. "Christ." Rather than get up and get pants, Logan moves his free hand to pick up his generous helping of merlot, the lines at his eyes deepening in a wince as frazzled nerves are soothed by one gulp, two gulps.

"This had really better be very important," he says, voice wet from drink and using the heel of his palm to wipe his mouth. Bare feet push and lever against the couch until he's sitting, and a small remote control is used to switch off the radio. A fleeting glance up and down the Cajun's well dressed frame, then to the package under an arm.

"Nah, Ah' break inta' half-dressed British guys' apartments all the time, s'mah hobby when Ah' ain't dressin' up like a girl an' kissin' boys." Sauntering in thorugh the living room, Kain makes a lazy approach to Logan, his shoes scuffing across the floor as he motions with a nod of his head to the large framed picture he's carrying awkwardly under one arm. "Or, y'know, this actually might be one'a th' most important conversations you've ever gone and had yourself." That much, at least, is delivered with the flash of a toothy smile.

Coming over to sit on one arm of the sofa, Kain offers out the five foot long painting by one side of the paper-wrapped frame to Logan. "Go on, jus' like Christmas day." There's a good-natured and light-hearted demeanor to Kain, and from the sounds of it he's likely planned this all out in his head a few times. Probably not including Logan in little more than a slinky red bathrobe, but who could've forseen that?

Probably anyone who knows Logan, actually.

"Be careful not t'make too much've a mess rippin' it open, but what's in there's about th' most important present you could ever get your sweaty mitts on." Kain offers in explanation to his strange actions, watching Logan amusedly.

Obligingly shifting ashtray and empty wine glass aside, Logan makes a face as he takes the broad present, awkwardly angling to rest partially on the glass and steel table just in front of him. The revolver is tucked away between couch pillow and arm. "If I thought Santa Claus looked anything like you, cowboy, I might have never gotten to sleep on Christmas Eve," is more sardonic than truly flirtatious, but at the very least, Kain is likely able to tell — he has the Brit's interest, more in the promise of important conversations than any illusion of gift-giving.

Long fingers crawling over the tearable paper until he finds a seam, and with that, Logan sweepingly and patiently pulls apart the brown material. His brow tenses with some scrutiny, head tilting as his attention crawls over its surface now half revealed. "You… shouldn't have. It won't go with anything."

"Did you know that blonde little otter-lookin' feller, Roderick, actually has a redeemable skill?" Kain lifts his brows up slowly, looking down to the painting and then back up to Logan. "Ah' dunno how much history they teach you at Pimp Academy, but that there's a depiction of the fall'a Julius Caesar," and Kain knows this because someone else told him, "an' that there's the Et Tu moment in action." Breathing in deeply just so that he can slowly exhale a calming breath, Kain lounges back on the arm of the sofa, having managed to play off Logan's sardonic humor with a demure expression that borders just a little on cocksure certainty.

Squinting at the painting, Kain furrows his brows and motions to it with one hand. "Ah' got a handle on who everyone in this here paintin' is, 'cept for a couple'a a knuckleheads that weren't painted face-on, and this here figure," Kain notes on pointing next to the shadowed person situated next to Laura Morgan.

"Un relatedly," Kain adds with an extended drawl of his words, "Ah'm gonna' be spendin' some time outta' town the next couple'a weeks, Ah' got somebody Ah' gotta' go talk to an' Ah' was wonderin' if'n you wouldn't mind keepin' an eye on mah Penthouse upstairs in the meanwhile? Just— you know— makin' sure nothin' goes missin?" Or that Laura doesn't do anything to his pants.

He has cause for worry, honest.

The last of the paper ripped away, Logan angles the painting to lie face up on his coffee table, elbows against bared knees and hands linking together as he studies each face. "I know Roderick," he says, but falls silent again as he tries to put his knowledge of classical art to good use Which is that he has none, but you don't need much. "And he said you'd be coming by eventually. He said for me to keep my mind open." Picking up his partially burned away cigarette, tapping off ash, he sits back in his couch.

"Somehow I don't think he was talking about housesitting, though sure, why not. That's me, innit?" He points, now, to a figure towards the right of the painting, before his gaze travels to Caeser himself. The immediate area becomes smokier with an exhale of nicotine.

"That's me, comin' round like th' ghost'a Christmas future," and somehow the dramatic irony of that comment is entirely lost on Kain. Sliding off of the arm of the sofa, Kain rises to stand straight, stepping away from where he'd been seated and slowly turns to face Logan, hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks and elbows akimbo. "Here's the deal about this, here," he nods to the painting, "little window inta' our mutual futures."

And this is emphasized firmly for Logan's benefit: "Don't cock it up."

With that admonishing done, Kain's shoulders slack some and he exhales a sigh with a nod of his head. "That feller there Ah' don't really know," he says with a motion to what is very clearly Teodoro Laudani, "an' Ah' was hopin' you might have some insight on somea' these here people. There's a jackoff with a goatee duckin' down in the back there too that Ah' ain't figured out yet. That and the Nikicrazy stripper bitch. Ain't seen her in years…"

"I wonder why," is spoken with a tone that suggests Kain really shouldn't wonder, considering the manner in which Logan was inducted into the Linderman Group in the first place. Ashing out his cigarette, his revolver is taken back in hand, the metallic sound of moving parts filling up the space as he fidgets, before pointing the muzzle towards one of the faces depicted. "I know that one. Dunno that one. There's you and that other one." This isn't particularly helpful, but he's thinking out loud.

By the time he's looking back up at Kain, there's accusation in pale eyes, and Logan levers himself up to stand as well, hand absently straightening the sit of red satin. "What on earth do you mean, don't cock it up? I went to the Linderman Group to change my fucking future, and this— " A vague, casual gesture of revolver at painting.

It's too early. "What do you know that I don't?" Logan settles on, and he doesn't need to point a gun for his voice to have that kind of confident demand.

"This here's me," Kain points himself out rather obviously right after Logan had done so, "takin' back mah life." There's the ghost of a smile on Kain's lips at the notion, brows raised and blue eyes full of something between mischief and intrigue. "All Ah' want you t'do right now, Johnny, is take this paintin' an' keep a hold on to it for th' night. Don't show it to nobody, don't take it anywhere, just keep an eye on it and think about what you think it means."

Looking away from Logan, Kain stares down in the muted and distant reflection in the glass and metal table nearby. "Then, if you're sure you want a slice'a this real big pie…" Kain's blue eyes lift back up to Logan, "you let me know. You let me know, and Ah'll make it absolutely certain to you that when this here future comes a steppin' your way, that it all comes out gold for you."

Logan's attention drops back down at the painting, letting a few seconds of silence whisper by before he absently twirls the revolver in hand, and tosses it back onto the couch. "Niki Sanders works at a little place called the Red Room. Or she did, before the winter hit — dunno if the business survived. As far as I could gather, she's still got a hate on for Linderman, and she's not too warm on me either." It's a tidbit, some sort of concession made in payment for Kain showing him the painting in the first place, for all that the promise could be empty.

But doesn't sound it enough for gunshots to ring through the apartment. "Muldoon's back in town," he adds, almost unrelatedly, though he's watching Kain's features carefully. Last time he heard of Muldoon, the man was in Russia, and Caliban had been keeping such information secretive. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

There's a furrow of Kain's brows, and he does a double-take at that, one brow lifting and lips parting in somewhat confused befuddlement. "He— are… you sure it's him?" There seems to be a certain level of implausible disbelief painted across Kain's face as he tries to puzzle out what it could mean. "You know like, one'a them face-changer guys?" There's a wave of Kain's hand in front of his face as if to illustrate the point. "Like a trannie but classier, y'know?"

Y'know?

"Nah Ah' don' know nothin' about that, far's Ah' know, Muldoon ain't never comin' round here no more, so whatever you saw…" there's a furrow of Kain's brows and a disquieted look. "Ah' can ask around, see if he's gone and done somethin' stupid. But between me, you, an' the color-by-numbers here… there ain't no more Muldoon. He's gone," there's a snap of Kain's fingers, "vamoosed."

The smile Kain gets is chilly and thin. Logan may be a negator, but he can't dampen the human capability of lying, and Logan is reasonably sure Kain has some talent in that arena. "I was visiting Centre Stage," Logan explains, with a shrug of shining satin. "The Triad's little fight club place, very quaint. Ran into Muldoon's pet, and unless squirrel monkeys regularly take a shine to me, then James Muldoon is in town and seeing what we've done to the place in his absence.

"Don't worry, I won't," and a sarcastic snap of Logan's fingers follows, "vamoose if it turns out I'm right. If there's something to be said about the Linderman Group, the need to know bullshit is a killer."

Grimacing at Logan's choice of words, there's a dip of Kain's head down into a nod, and that expression turns into a smile and a dry laugh as he scrubs one hand at the back of his neck slowly. "Yeah, somethin' like that actually…" There's a moment of silence after that comment, and Kain's faint smile fades away, melted down into a more solemn expression that comes with the shake of his head.

"Ah'll ask around," Kain offers, "about ol' Dune-buggy showin' back up, see if there's anythin' Ah' might be able t'find out before I take off from town for a few days." Fishing around in his pockets, Kain pulls out a jingling key ring and underhand-tosses the keys to his penthouse to Logan.

"If you happen t'see a short," Kain waves his hand around he five foot mark in the air, "white-haired little thing with freckles and a— " he cuts himself off, realizing his description was getting a little excessive. "Uh, if you see a lady lookin' like that nosin' around mah apartment, you go on and feel free to throw 'er out a window, a'right?"

Logan still has an analysing kind of stare fixed on Kain by the time keys are being tossed his way, but he's readily derailed, catching the keyring and looping it around a finger with a slight smirk of satisfaction. Penthouse~ here he comes. "I'll keep a look out," he agrees, moving to claim back where he was lounging on the couch before Kain had broken in, one long leg flipping over the other to cross, hand smoothing out the hem of his robe before he juts a chin towards the painting.

"Shame," he states, an arm coming to rest along the back of the couch. "I don't see Nichols in there, do you?"

Brows furrowed, Kain allows his lips to show the faintest sight of a frown at that revelation, and his eyes downcast to the floor. "Ah' don't see the artist himself either…" he admits quietly, "Ah' don' see a lot've people." He doesn't see half the people that were at the meeting earlier. Swallowing tightly, Kain shakes his head and rolls his shoulders turning to leave Logan in all his half-dressed state with a painting depicting what might come to pass and what could be.

There's a lot of things in that painting that don't quite make sense at the moment, and the statue holding the world in one hand is among them. "Ah'll be back tomorrow…" Kain says in a way that might be construed as a threat if he weren't being so soft-spoken now. There's a look down to the floor and a slow shake of his head, before he looks back up and over to Logan wordlessly.

"Ah' can show mah'self out."


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