Participants:
| Scene Title | Why Are You Interested? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Minea wants something. Delilah is suspicious. |
| Date | August 23, 2009 |
A comfortable place, located in the basement of 14 East 4th Street. The red brick walls are covered with memorabilia from various icons of rock and places in rock history, creating a feel similar to that of a Hard Rock Cafe.
The left wall has two bars separated by swinging doors which lead to and from the kitchen. Directly across from the entrance is a two foot high stage with all the equipment needed for acts to perform there. The right wall has three doors marked as restrooms: two for use by women and one by men.
Thirty square feet of open space for dancing and standing room is kept between the stage and the comfortable seating placed around tables which fill the remainder of the Cellar.
The lighting here is often kept dim for purposes of ambience, and when performers are onstage the place is loud enough to make conversation difficult. Just inside the door is a podium where location staff check IDs and stamp the hands of those under twenty-one with a substance visible under UV lights at the two bars and by devices the servers carry. On the podium's front is a sign with big black letters that just about explain it all: If You Don't Like Rock 'N' Roll, You're Too Late Now!
A message had been what she was going to try for, but the more Minea thought about it, the more she needed to hit up the Rock Cellar and get a picture of Feng Daiyu or at least study the tape and see what he looked like. She knew where he had been in the bar. It was just a matter of whether the bar had surveillance inside, and also… whether they'd even talk to her. If what Len said was right, then…
…She'd cross that bridge when she got there. For now, she was parking, making her way to the bar. ID out to verify age and inquiring to the bouncer who she'd talk to with regards to security tapes of the bar.
The door is unlocked when Minea arrives, but there aren't many people present. Cooks are in the kitchen, and a few servers are around, also a bartender or three at the two bars, but there's not yet a bouncer. It's early for that, at 16:06. Bartenders are thus on their own for verifying ages of people seeking alcohol. There also isn't anyone slated to play live tonight, a day of comparative quiet after Else Kjelstrom's CD launch the day before. Cat herself is elsewhere, the table she normally occupies in the shadows when present is vacant.
And so to the bar the woman goes, making her way to the seat that Veronica had said she was sitting in. Odds of getting a print: pretty fucking slim. How many people sat here the rest of the night and put their hands down? So the dark haired woman leans against the bar, raising a hand to garner the attention of a bartender. "Pardon. I have a question. I need to discuss any security cameras and tapes you all might have running here? Who would I talk to?"
Delilah is one of the few working at the bar already, having spent much of her time here cleaning up what was still left from the night previous. They had time to clean things afterward, but barely. When the redhead turns around at the voice, it is with a bright yellow cleaning cloth in her hand, the other one putting away something that was being used to get off a rather malignant bit of goo stuck under the bar's counter.
Minea is recognized right away for many reasons; however, Delilah feels the need to play stupid and simply pretend this is the first time they've ever met, testing those waters one step at a time. "That'd be me, I guess. We don't have cameras inside though. Outside, yes. Why are you interested?"
To Minea, Delilah's someone she barely remembers, if at all and it shows on the woman's face. "There was an individual inside the bar last night, he was sitting at this stool." Minea places a hand on the one Feng Daiyu sat at. "I'm trying to locate the individual. I was told that he was here last night during a concert. I'm wondering if I can look at the surveillance." The approximate hours are rattled off, when he might have come in and left. There's a hopeful look on the agent's face.
Quietly, Dee puts away that yellow cloth under the bar, watching Minea with half of her vision. Notes are made- first, Minea comes in, and now she is looking for someone. Something to keep in mind and tell somebody, no doubt.
"Are you with an agency or anything like that? Or are you just investigating?" No word about if she can look. "There were a lot of people here last night. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had snuck around to get in- I can't say if a tape'll be too accurate, but…"
"I'm investigating Ma'am. I'm with Homeland Security." Her badge is brought out, opened and slid across for Delilah to peruse at her pleasure. "I'm not looking to confiscate the tapes, I'm hoping that I can get a look at them, to see if the individual in question was indeed here. If they snuck in, then they snuck in, but if they didn't and they walked right in, then… Listen, if underages came in, then, that's fine, I'm not here to arrest anyone, and that's the job of the every day police. If you're not the individual who can help me and give me access to the recordings, then I'd like to talk to whomever can, please? You're just doing your job, and I'm just doing mine."
HS agents should probably be used to getting some stinky little looks from people, right? Delilah's isn't the most friendly anymore- mostly drawing off to a point where she seems like she will put up with this for as long as the problem is here. "I can take you to the security guys upstairs. Can you finish?" The redhead turns to look at the other woman behind the bar, who gives a passive little nod. With that decided, Delilah winds her way out from behind the bar, beckoning Minea along to the little elevator in the back. "And if your person was hanging around the last day or so, we can probably check that too. I can't remember how long we keep video before it cycles out."
"Thank you." Be polite, Minea. Bees with honey. "All I know is that the individual was here this evening" Minea's badge is plucked back, folded and put away. She remembers Veronica's warning, that a member of Phoenix owned the bar and Len's warning that they might not be friendly to her. "I appreciate your willingness to help me in this matter. It means a great deal to me."
The lobby of this building is spacious, with wide glass windows which look out onto 4th Street. The floor is a polished grey marble; the smooth walls are freshly painted in a cream color. A security desk staffed by men and women in professional clothing occupies a central position. From that desk maintenance crews are overseen and directed; they also monitor the footage from discreetly placed security cameras which cover all the public areas on the first through fourth floors, including the elevators (one centered in the lobby and each corridor), the stairwells at the front and back of the interior, and the outside of the entire building. More than one person is on duty at all times, and the public areas are kept well lit around the clock.
Behind the desk are four unmarked doors of heavy steel with strong locks and keycard access, evenly spaced. Keycards are required for entry to the building itself during hours of darkness. Anyone without them must make their case for entry with the security staff by the voice transmitters on both sides of the doors.
The rest of the ground floor has three corridors of four apartments each, their doors are sturdy pine with strong locks operated by metal keys and numbered from 101 through 112. Floors two and three are the same as the first floor, minus the security desk and unmarked doors. Each of these have apartments in that corridor instead, making a total of sixteen each, numbered in the same fashion as the first floor residences.
What exists above the third floor is anyone's guess. The elevators only have visible buttons for those first three levels and a control panel of some sort which takes a key and a keycard to access. If the security staff members know what's up there, they aren't saying.
"It's not like I can say no anyway. Someone would probably just come back with a big shiny stamp of seizure if I told you to get lost." It's clear where Delilah stands, as she steps into the elevator and presses up when Minea follows. "I understand that you're just doing your job though." Nothing personal. She just doesn't seem to like authority.
The doors slide open in the lobby, and Delilah steps forward to come up to the security desk, knuckles rapping on the top. "Oy, hey, this lady needs to look at yesterday's tapes. Who were you looking for again?" A glance back at Minea, and an expert attempt at slight trickery.
Nice try Delilah. She's been a spook far longer than Delilah's been dressing up in little bee-adorned dresses. "Hello. Agent Dahl," she states when they arrive at security. The badge is once more taken out and given for perusal. "I'm looking for footage from inside the bar, and outside the bar below." The hours are listed off. "Please." Because sometimes, being polite makes all the different.
The man, in a pair of dark slacks and a golf shirt with a logo and the words Village Renaissance Building on the upper left chest, examines the badge shown to him when Minea steps up and speaks. "Agent Dahl," he acknowledges briefly, "the Rock Cellar isn't part of the camera network, but the perimeter of the building is completely covered." He gestures for Delilah and the agent to join him behind the counter as he starts cuing up footage from the night before. "Who exactly are you looking for, Agent?" he asks. There's a ton of people arriving on the screen then, of various descriptions. "That singer really packs them in."
"I'd like, then, to know who to talk to with regards to cameras related to the bar." She'll suffice with the outside cameras for now, better than nothing. She might find something. There's a glance to Delilah and then to the security individual. "Thank you for your help, Miss." Once she looks back to Delilah. Hint. You're not welcome here.
Delilah sidles along behind the desk, having made it a point to see this through. And though Minea didn't answer her, the security man asks her the very same thing while his is pulling up the timeslot. "If Homeland Security comes into the bar looking for someone, I have every reason to stay and find out why. And hell, if I can help you, that's all the better. I told you downstairs that we don't have cameras on the inside. This reel is probably the best you're going to get, unless you find someone with a recording of the band, or personal tapes." Delilah takes Minea's hint, and stomps it into the ground. The security guy probably already knew it was a bad idea for the agent to imply such a thing at her- there's no getting Dee off once she's on.
The man playing footage for Minea glances at her, then Delilah, and back to the screen. He's elected to start playing images from about an hour or so before the first band went onstage and runs it at normal speed, letting the agent view at her leisure. Nothing is said except "The lady is quite correct, Miss. Cameras are for knowing who comes into the place and what they do in public areas, and for monitoring the exterior. The Cellar doesn't have interior cameras."
"Is there a secondary place where we can go over the tapes in private, Mister…" She looks for a name of some kind.
"Miss…" Aha. "Trafford. This is an investigation. You've played your part already. I'd like it kindly if you'd leave. If the security guard here sees fit to fill you in on what I've observed after I've left, then by all means, he's welcome to. But currently, I need some privacy. If I have questions about the individual, then I will return to the bar and ask you." Trafford. Poison. "And I think highly if you didn't touch me on your way out."
"I hope you don't find a fucking lick, Agent Dahl." Delilah slips her way to the other side of the security desk, on the way drawing her bare arm dreadfully close, as if she were taunting the last sentence's very existence. "I'll touch who I damn well please. But you're not lucky enough for that." The redhead smiles sweetly over her shoulder as she steps away towards the elevator. Her tone, posture- it says 'don't come back'.
The man behind the desk, whose name isn't shown, looks from Delilah to the agent and back again. He doesn't, however, break professionalism as he acts to defuse this and get rid of the unwelcome agent. "There's no need for discord, ladies," he states calmly. "Agent Dahl, I'll just burn the footage to a disc you can take with you and watch at your leisure. Will that suffice?"
'That will suffice and be ideal, thank you." She thought she might need a warrant to get that. Delilah is pointedly ignored, even the physical threat. Takes a little more than that to scare one Agent Dahl, there, Delilah.
It doesn't take long to do as he offered, and soon the disc of footage is being handed over to the DHS official. "Good evening, Agent Dahl," the man offers pleasantly.
"Thank you, sir." Painless, Easy, now to see if it actually copied would be the question. "Thank you for your co-operations, sir, I'll make sure to note it." And with the disc tucked away, the agent turns around, making her way out. Out of the room, out of the building and to her car. She's got a call to make, a message to leave and then, then head over to Veronica's maybe and see if she can help locate Mr. Daiyu on the recordings.