Description: A small back room, in an old shop. A rising star in the criminal underworld - one Elle Belmounte, the leader of Blackjack. And a deal. A deal.
Chinatown. The sound, the smell, the undeniable fact that no matter where you turn, there's going to be a storefront with dead animals hanging . It's a reminder that people have a tough time changing, no matter what the situation. The fact that it's located in a mjaor metropolitan area where life is supposed to be a veritable colorless polyglot of people does nothing to help the fact that people just like to be who they are, regardless of influence, culture, or pressure to conform. Inf act, Chinatown seems to be an active rebellion against the concept on color alone. Garish reds, golds, and greens assault the senses along with the powerful scent of foods and the subtle undertone of urine. Yup. It's Chinatown.
And nestled somewhere in this bustling mass of humanity is a storefront. It appears to be no different than any little Asian convenience store on the planet. Cramped rows that go back into poorly lit recesses, a squirrely-eyed clerk, and incessant goofy J-pop warbling over a pathetic radio system are it's primary traits. However, there's a few differences that make this store look a little different. In the front of the store is a placard that simply has the Jack of Clubs from a Bycycle playing card blown up to fit it, and an arrow that points to the back of the store. It's subtle, and yet not, for anyone that knows what it might mean. The word is, on the busy streets of Chinatown, that there's someone out there that will make things happen for a reasonable bit of coin. Devoid of morality, completely mercantile, and nigh-emotionless, Blackjack can solve your problems, whether it be the battle plan to conquer a nation or a missing poodle.
And somewhere in the back of this store sits Elle, who is busy arranging her new back office. The Thailand job has been lucrative, and purchasing a convenience store is just one of the many passive income investments that she's made. The people will come. Eventually.
Case in point.
A hand grasps a crumpled piece of paper, an address scrawled upon it in messy blue ink. Eyes lift from the spidery handwriting to the nearest street sign, bolted to the brick of an alley wall.
A brow furrows, lips tighten in distaste.
Footsteps sound along badly-paved ground, the heavy tread of leather boots moving down the street.
An arm shoves the store door aside, swinging it open with a creak of hinges. The man pauses for a moment. He sweeps the convenience store with narrowed eyes, surveying the dust-covered shelves and ancient wares. He stares at the clerk behind the counter. The clerk stares back.
And then, without a word, the new arrival stalks towards the back of the store. A moment's glance leads him to the office at the back of the room - which he enters, without knocking.
Remy stands in the doorway, his usual leather-jacket clad self, long green hair framing his glowering face.
"Blackjack," he states, in a faintly accented voice.
If it's a question, it's a rhethorical one.
"It's a game of chance where 'close enough' can be good enough, getting it dead on is insurmountable, and if played under certain conditions, face cards mean nothing," Elle replies, her voice flat and dry, like a cool breeze over a barren landscape. The woman's tired eyes stare dully at Remy as she turns in her chair to view the man 'intruding' on the premises.
"If you're here, that means that you have a problem. It's either with me, or it's with something you want fixed. If it's the former, get in line. There's a list of people that probably want me to disappear, and they'll be disappointed with you if you do it for 'em," she says offhandedly, shuffling some paperwork. "If it's the former, then we can sit down and talk.
Elle sloops a foot around a spare chair, and halfheartedly pulls it over so that Remy can sit down. Clearly, not what one would expect from someone that looks like she fell out of the content of Rolling Stone Magazine. Nevertheless, Elle's attention is taken up by Remy completely now, although it's hard to tell what she's thinking since she throws off all the empathic vibe of a dead squid.
Which is fine. Because it's not unlike the expression on Remy's own face.
Except he doesn't hide his emotions as well. For a moment, just a moment, something flashes in his eyes. Anger, irritation... his facial muscles shift, minutely, the skin at the edges of his eyes crinkling, his lips tightening. But his reaction...doesn't last. An iron mask clamps down over his face. And when he responds, his features are cool and controlled. As is his voice.
"Cute," he says, in a quiet tone, "you think you're funny."
Remy stands in the doorway, arms at his sides. He makes no move to enter the office. He watches Elle with unblinking eyes.
"A comedianne, are you?"
"No. I'm clever, which is how I stay alive in this business. The wit is for free," says Elle, pushing her work aside for a moment. "Besides, if I didn't make veiled analogies and quirky comments, they'd revoke my bad guy license." She folds her hands and taps her thumbs together.
"So, we going to stare at each other like zombies and pretend we're hardcore and full of ourselves, or are you going to actually tell me why you're here scaring away the kids trying to buy poke'mon cards up front?" Apparently, she can't go for a second without tossing out a snarky comment. That tends to happen when you deal with insanity daily. Then again, who's to say that she's just not an incredibly reserved kind of crazy?
That being said, she leans back, raises an eyebrow, and takes a deep breath. She can sit here all day if need be while the kid works out his issues.
Remy spreads his hands, palms open.
"I'm not the one," he says, "insisting on wisecracks."
The Frenchman gives a shrug. He enters the office, shouldering through the doorway. He grips the proferred chair, dragging it back an inch. Then he pours his tall frame into it. Resting his elbow on the surface of Elle's desk, he leans forward a little, regarding her.
"And you call yourself a 'businesswoman'?"
He snorts, faintly.
"No, I call myself someone who's having her time wasted," Elle says, turning back to her work, deciding that this is going to take a while. Honestly, it's like dealing with a petulant five year old that wants some cookies but can't bring himself to ask for them. "So what is it? I have actual important clients to deal with. Ones that actually tell me what they want and pay me."
"And for the record, it wouldn't really matter what I said to you, you would have likely found a way to hate it, wouldn't you?" At this point, her words are pretty absent as she focuses her attention on the papers in front of her. Accounting always sounds like such a dreary profession in the movies and filsm. In reality? It's even worse, because it's a lot harder than it looks. There's something to be said about mirthless accountants.
"True," Remy replies, candidly, making absolutely no attempt at dissemination.
"But I could say the same," he continues, still speaking in a calm and level voice, "you already decided how to react...the moment I walked in."
He smiles, ever so slightly. But it's the sort of smile that doesn't carry any warmth, a smile without any sort of humour, one that completely fails to extend to the rest of his face.
"So are you willing to listen? Or should I leave you to your tower of overwhelming antisocial arrogance?"
"Depends on if what you need outweighs whatever you find distasteful," she says, and turns to face him. "So talk to me. What needs to be fixed? You've got the 'Eddie Vedder' attitude, looks, and enough power reeking off of you to get yourself an army of girls. You're not hurting for cash, either. So it's either something personal, or it's something for someone else."
She pulls out a new notepad, manila folder, and a pen from behind her ear. "Let's start with general facts, and I'll probably end up asking you some questions in specifics. We'll see where we go from there," she says, pulling open her desk drawer to pull out some soda. She pushes one battle towards Remy as she cracks open the seal. It's chilled, but not cold.
Remy makes a small sound that might be a laugh. A laugh that died stillborn in his throat, at least. He slides his fingers round the bottle, gripping the glass. But he does not drink, at least not yet.
"I think," he says, with a mild amount of genuine bemusement, "you overestimate my circumstances."
He looks directly at Elle, scrutinizing the woman in the same way she did him.
"Be that as it may. I am looking for someone."
Pause.
"/Jokes aside/."
Yes, clearly he knows how that sentence might sound.
She nods. "Okay. No jokes," Elle says. Business is business, after all. It makes no sense to continually insult a prospective client. "Looking for someone, are you?" Her brain immediately ratchets into gear as she starts going through her list of moles, eyes twitching back and forth as if reading something. "I see. That'll be a little bit different than my usual faire," she says offhandedly, her pen already scribbling.
"So who am I looking for, and what am I doing with them if I find them?" She doesn't ask 'why', noteably. It doesn't matter to her 'why' unless her client decides to tell her. Reasons aren't important. Payment is. The less she knows the better, actually, and it's a balancing act every time she enters into a new agreement of what to know and not know.
Remy arches an eyebrow. So. Apparently she -can- be serious. A good thing to know. It'd be a waste of time if this woman were incompetent. If he absolutely has to commit the distasteful act of dealing with criminals, he at least wants to know he's getting something /worthwhile/ from his efforts.
"You find him," Remy replies, flatly, "you tell me."
He reaches into a jacket pocket, pulling out a piece of folded paper. He tosses it negligently onto the desk with a flick of the wrist. A photocopied picture, with a name printed on it in ballpoint pen. A photo of a man in a French Army uniform.
"Old picture," Remy says, "ten, fifteen years."
Elle picks up the picture and looks it over. Some soldier? Well, at least French soldiers don't get deployed all over the damn place like an American soldier. That makes it easier... but not by much. Some information is definitely needed, but shouldn't be incredibly hard to get to... if she can manage to get onto a French Military base with a records holding facility.
"Sure," she says without much problem. Locating a target and informing a client of it's location is pretty straightforward. She takes a pull from her soda, and writes down the name. She feeds the old photo into her color copier, which spits out a copy of the battered old photo without too much of a wait. Elle clips her copy to the file, and slides the picture back.
"Where'd you last have contact with this guy?" She asks, making more notes. "You know of any relatives or friends of his?" More names are always better, obviously. Then again, she's been given missions where she's just been handed a description and been expected to locate them. Not the easiest thing.
"I think," Remy says, a smile still faintly on his face, "you'll find it more difficult than /that/."
He takes his copy of the photo back, folding it in half with a small gesture. He glances at it briefly, though the image on it is already burned into his mind.
A man, somewhere in his 50s or 60s - fit for an individual of his age, appearing younger on casual glance. But not a young man. Thus a strange man to be wearing the rank insignia of a mere Corporal - but perhaps not so strange in light of the fact the uniform in the photo is /out of date/. The uniform of the Algerian War, a uniform worn by veterans unable or unwilling to let the conflict go.
That may well be a metaphor for Remy's own hatred, his own grudge. If that thought crosses his mind, however, he does not give voice to it.
Remy grasps the soda bottle, lifts it, drinks. Then he stares over the rim at Elle, his eyes half-slitting. He swallows, slowly, deliberately.
"He fancies himself a...'fighter'."
Contempt oozes from Remy's voice.
"I've heard he might be in Asia, for the so-called underground circuits. But that trail is months, if not years, old."
He frowns.
"Friends. Hn. Other veterans, OAS, I don't know. Family..."
His expression hardens.
When Remy speaks the next word, it is cold, harsh, bitter.
"Me."
It would be a lie to say that such a dramatic bomb didn't strike her in some fashion. Elle's emotionally deadened, but she's not completely dry of them. Truly emotionless people don't exist outside robots, monks, and lobotomy patients, and Elle isn't any of those three. Still, the fact that someone hates their father so much to the point where that hatred is almost physical force is a surprise.
Even melodramatic goobers like Jiro don't give off that much radiating hatred, and Elle's been dead center in the sights of the Stray Dog's rage before. It's somewhat less than impressive than some of the other things she's faced down, but dismissing Jiro's hate as a force is something only the srongest of people can do.
"Well, that does answer a lot," Elle says, making a note in her pad again. "Name, face, last knowns..." her voice trails off for a moment as she quantifies everything. No, it won't be easy. So the dealbreaker is really all based on the final factor. "So what were you thinking of paying with? I take cash, goods, or services, or a combination of the three."
Remy doesn't reply immediately. He spends a moment, a long moment, looking directly at Elle. His face motionless, his eyes unblinking.
His hand tightens round the soda bottle, gripping the chilled glass. His knuckles whiten, the skin across his hand growing taut. His arm trembles, just a little, before going still.
Finally, he answers.
"Name," he says, levelly, "your price. And what you mean by 'goods and services'."
She elaborates. "I often run into clients that can't pay a cash fee up front, enter an installment plan, or come up with any kind of renumeration within any appreciable timeframe because of extenuating circumstances."
Now, just turning them down would be bad business," Elle continues, shifting her weight in her chair. "Luckily, in the business I'm in, sometimes information is just as good as cash. I'll do jobs for good intelligence, if I thinkt he source is reliable enough. I also take goods. A lot of people seem to have access to things that have 'fallen off the back of the truck'," She quotes with her fingers, "So to speak. Normally it's the usual stuff you'd expect, but sometimes I end up with really weird cargo. Once, i got paid in $45,000.00 woth of fake Gucci bags."
"Finally, for the person with absolutely nothing, I have them work for me for a little while. Sometimes they have a skill that's easy for me to use, like accounting or security systems or something... but when I have to deal with a meathead fighter type, I have them act like a meat sheild for some of my more dangerous jobs." Pretty straightforward, really. Elle likes things simple.
"This is a low-risk run for me, so I'll ask for $35,000.00. Half up front, half on delivery of location. I'll also need three plane tickets." The rest she likes to take care of herself, especially for first time clients.
Remy frowns. He remains where he is, sitting still in his own chair. Looking across the desk at Elle, his eyes locked on the woman. He listens. He waits for her to finish.
And then he inclines his head, just a little. Not enough to break eye contact, but enough to indicate assent and understanding - at least in part.
It is a considerable sum. But he expected that. And truth be told, he's spent more over the past months in his own search - to little avail.
The prospect of bargaining never even crosses his mind.
He does, however, tilt the bottle in his hand, pointing the rim at Elle.
"Why the plane tickets?"
A beat.
"How else am I supposed to get to France? By donkey?"
While Remy had been busy scowling, looking petulant, and insulting Elle for trying to bring a little levity to an otherwise unfortunate business that subsists off the suffering of others, Elle has been formulating a plan of attack and investigation.
The first step will be to get more information on 'Dad', and the best way to do that? Why, that'd be to break into a French Government Records office. While a lot of people like to pooh-pooh the French and laugh at their habit of 'surrendering', Elle knows the score. France has considerable internal security.
Thanks a whole lot, Charles De Gaulle.
And thanks to people like Remy's father, soldiers of the French Army, veterans of the Algerian War.
Who tried to assassinate him.
Across the table from Elle, Remy snorts, exhaling in a sharp bark of what may be laughter.
"I was," he replies, laconically, "expecting you'd swim."
He shakes his head slightly, conceding the point.
"Tickets. Fine."
If there's one thing that Remy knows how to do, it's travel arrangements. One does not pursue a vendetta over international boundaries without getting some contacts in that area. The rest, however...
He lifts the soda bottle to his lips, taking another drink. He swirls the carbonated beverage round, in his mouth, before letting it wash down his throat.
"I can arrange those, and give you..."
He stops, mid-sentence, reviewing numbers in his head. He scowls, a flash of irritation crossing his features.
"...nine, maybe ten thousand. Now, immediately. The rest..."
"we'll take ten, and the rest on delivery, sure,' Elle says. Maybe it's folding a little too early, but the fact is that he didn't haggle in the initial pricing, and the fact is that she's not putting Remy's job too high on the priority list. "Results may take some time... but I'm not hard to get a hold of if you really need me," she explains.
She does have her rep to consider. Taking money and running isn't her idea of making sure she has clientele.
"In the meantime, just relax and let me do the rest... unless there's something else you have on your mind that you want me to take care of."
"No," Remy says, after a moment. But it is a moment where he clearly sits, thinking, his expression dark.
He closes his eyes, taking a breath.
"Agreed, then," he says.
He drains the last of the soda, then sets the bottle on the desk. Glass clinks against the wooden tabletop as he pushes it aside.
"But I dislike being in debt."
There is a time for morality, for justice, for revenge. But there is also a time to be pragmatic.
"I do not /like/ your 'line of work'," Remy states, bluntly, "but I'm sure you'd let me know...if there is something I can do for /you/."
"Trust me, I don't love it either. But at this point I've dug a hole so deep I can't even begin to get out of it," Elle says with a shrug. Such is life. No sense bitching and bellyaching over what is. Just keep looking forward and keep the rose colored glasses on hand if needed.
"If anything, I'll probably get a hold of you if I have any more questions or just to give a status report on your case. The fact is that I'm not big into bothering my clients. I figure they have enough problems without me giving them another one."
She picks up the bottle left on her table, and flicks it aside into a trash can, where it lands with a small crash. "You can leave your contact info with Jeebs," she says, referring to the twitchy eyed mutant at the front of the store.
"An enlightened view," Remy replies. He sounds as if he actually means it. He rises to his feet, pushing the chair back. Then, without a further word, wave, or acknowledgement, he walks out of the little office. Back towards the dilapidated convenience store in the front - and the unenjoyable task of dealing with the life-form behind the counter.
Log created on 13:13:18 06/19/2007 by Remy, and last modified on 05:36:47 08/29/2007.