handful_ofdust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
handful_ofdust) wrote2012-04-26 02:10 pm
handful_ofdust) wrote2012-04-26 02:10 pm
Entry tags:
Because Nothing SAys "I'm Working" Like Pornless Cat-Porn
Lackadaisy Undoing, Part 3
Fandom: Lackadaisy
Mordecai Heller/Viktor Vasko
Behind that one small shop across from the Maribel Hotel, Mordecai stood at the alley's end a long moment, shivering, the shock of his wound having long since knocked whatever cover his coat should have given him all to hell. It had started raining almost the very minute he'd left his no-longer-favourite teashop, and hadn't paused yet. Now he'd developed an annoying sniffle, and his pince-nez were so irretrievably misted over that he could barely see his own watch-face. Under normal circumstances, just the tick of the watch itself—steady, repetitious, precise—would provide some sort of comfort. But these were hardly normal circumstances...
No, hardly. Especially so since, as it only now occurred to him, Mordecai hadn't really seen “normal” for over a year, at the very least.
And how are we reckoning, exactly? His brain asked him, annoyingly calm. Oh yes, that's right: Pretty much from the moment you fired a bullet into Viktor Vasko's knee, then walked away, leaving him yelling about how he was going to kill you next time I see you, Mordecai! at your back.
Flipping the watch shut and fisting his hands in his pockets, Mordecai told that voice to shut up, firmly. Which didn't help even one bit, as he'd somehow known it probably wouldn't.
It was his long-dormant bookkeeper's instincts, Mordecai supposed, waking up from their reborn-as-a- jumped-up-thug nap. Things simply had to be juggled 'til they balanced, but if he didn't have nearly enough information to make a real stab at analysis (which he didn't, clearly), the best thing—the only thing—was to gain distance. To get himself someplace “safe”, always assuming there was such a thing, and stay there 'till he could wait this out before trying again, with better information.
Viktor, somewhere very much not his brain suggested, almost sadly. But: NO, his brain replied, overly stern maybe, yet not exactly incorrect. Because that was...a bad idea, even more so than his initial impulse to send the Savoys some sort of surreptitious S.O.S.; whatever marginal amusement value he might now have for them set aside, they were both admirably practical animals, unlikely to risk themselves for nothing but pure goodwill, or even the lure of a second drunken bedroom go-'round. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise him overly if they already knew about the $3000, and were looking to collect it themselves...
Viktor wouldn't do that, though, the same below-the-belt “voice” whispered. Which was certainly true, so far as that went; though a classic misanthrope in most matters, once Viktor gave his loyalty, it was never withdrawn, no matter the consequences. As both of them knew all too well.
And here there came a strung-together flash of disparate moments, all those times he'd performed surreptitious surveillance on his no-longer-former partner, over the last twelve or so months—those times they'd almost met again by accident, up to and including that still startlingly recent night when he'd plundered Lackadaisy's gun-storage room; Viktor had passed with a literal arm's reach of him, so close he'd paused in mid-limp to sniff the air, as though he'd caught a trace of Mordecai's pomade. Then gone on, not looking back, while Mordecai crouched there with his heart hammering, slowly relinquishing his grip on the weapon he'd brought with him.
The fierceness with which he'd missed Viktor during their...separation would never cease to bother him, probably; even now, with that rift supposedly re-sutured, it was frustrating, improbable, inexplicable. A scar he still found himself picking at constantly, perhaps in hopes it would never fully heal.
Pap, that's all it is, he thought, grimly, baring his teeth into the wet wind. Froth, foolishness, sheer schmaltz. Never took you for one of those sentimental types, Mister Heller, you with your careful double-ledger system account-keeping, your well-oiled clockwork soul...
Yes, yes. And yet—this was the truth, also: A year ago, though, he wouldn't have been standing here drenched, skin-soaked and shivering, carrying on whole conversations without ever opening his mouth. Instead, he would've simply gone wherever he thought Viktor most likely to be, and stayed there.
He couldn't do that now, however, because doing so would lead directly to Viktor trying to protect him, as always, leading in turn to a wide range of potential outcomes, all equally bad: A beating from the cops, prison, death row. One way or the other, Viktor would try to help him, and fail, thus leaving Mordecai responsible for having gotten him killed, as well as crippled. And for all that it would undoubtedly be the huge fool's fault, if so—he frankly couldn't see it happening any other way—Mordecai was nevertheless forced, in all honesty, to admit to a good deal of annoyance at the prospect.
You haf been reckless, Mordecai, Viktor's voice told him, half-memory, half imagination. You vill get in trouble.
To which Mordecai heard himself snap back, internally: Oh? But you see, I already am in trouble, you immense oaf, so...so there. How do you like those apples?
(There. That was telling him.)
Current hallucination over and done with, therefore, he strode decisively forwards, slipping in through the back door, which clattered to behind him. The shopkeeper looked 'round, eyes immediately twice their usual size; Mordecai brushed past his own urge to snarl at him, instead rapping out—
“You know who I am?”
“Yuh...yessir, Mister Heller.”
“Then you've probably some idea why I'm here, I take it. But if not: I need to use the private line. Mister Sweet's private line.”
The man nodded, twitching towards that closet-sized hole he called an office. “It's, uh...in there.”
“Good.” Mordecai fixed him with Glare Number Three, extra-strength (patent pending). And suggested, as he did: “I wouldn't go anywhere.”
“...'course not.”
The phone, once picked up, rang and rang, belaying the Maribel switchboard's vaunted efficiency. Mordecai resisted the urge to drum his fingers, not particularly wanting to touch—well, anything, in here. Eventually, just as he was about to slam the receiver back down, Asa Sweet's familiar “charming” wheeze came on at last, a running-to-fat man's idea of verbal calisthenics. Drawling, as it did: “Morning, or maybe afternoon—hard to tell, with all that cloud cover. This here's Asa Sweet. And you are?”
“On the run, Mister Sweet. Bleeding from my back. Worth $3,000, apparently—alive or dead, one assumes, though the general emphasis so far has definitely been on 'dead'. So naturally I thought of you, fount of all information in this town that you claim to be, with fingers in every pie; I don't suppose you'd happen to know anything pertinent to my situation, would you?”
He heard Asa draw breath, not quite a gasp, then audibly smooth himself back out, pouring on the honey. “...well, hello there, son. As it happens, I've been waitin' on your call—but you see, I'm sorta engaged, right this very moment. Care to check back in a few?”
“Given what I had to do to get here, not really, no. Engaged how?”
“Oh, this 'n' that. You looked outside today?”
“Looked...? I've been outside, for some time, if that's what you—”
But it isn't, obviously, and Mordecai well knew it. No window in the “office”, so he craned his head sidelong, peering out through the shop's waterlogged front window. Saw the Maribel, all its lights lit and its banners flapping, its fourteen storeys a ridiculously elaborate wedding-cake advertisement for the Marigold below, legal business piled on top of illegal; the street, more crammed than usual with Henry Ford's finest product, a truck or two—no, make that a very specific sort of truck, two or even three Black Mariahs, surrounded by a general moil of hard men in suits with their shotguns racked, flappers and sots being pushed inside in knots by blue uniforms in dripping raincoats...
Oh, and that wasn't good. Any of it.
“Unwelcome guests, from what I gather,” Mordecai said, carefully. “A raid. Alcohol and Tobacco?”
“That's right.”
“So—not someplace I'd be welcome, really, right about now. Given my line of work.”
“Sadly, no. Y'all keep yourself well, though, and I'm sure we can work somethin' out later.”
Mordecai wasn't sure of that at all, obviously, but knew better than push the point. So—
“Yes,” he agreed, tonelessly. And let the receiver click to.
Emerging from the “office” after a few frantic seconds' de-grooming—coat reversed and shoulder-holsters dumped, hat shoved unceremoniously down the back of his pants along with one of his guns, which nuzzled his spine's hollow while the other weighted down one gartered sock, hair mussed high and his pince-nez stowed gingerly way in an exterior-turned-interior pocket—Mordecai squinted around for the shopkeeper, who he didn't find, and hadn't expected to. With one hand steady on the wall, therefore, he eked back the same way he'd come before suddenly wheeling to slam the door back open, poised to run—
(a thing he hated passionately to do, always had, unless there was no choice, which there very much wasn't)
—only to stop almost in mid-lunge, confronted as he found himself by two of the very same Prohibition agents he'd just been watching: One taller, broader, probably Irish, with that usual lawman's idiot bruiser grin, the other smaller, sleeker—Italian? That seemed unlikely, but he certainly had the look—with an unlit pipe held loose in one hand, like some dime-store Sherlock Holmes.
Can I help you? He considered asking in Old Mordecai's voice, the one he barely remembered anymore—from New York, before, when all he did was sit in the corner and pray nobody noticed him as he added, subtracted, divided, multiplied. Tracked other people's money, hid it, sent it scurrying all over the city he'd once called his own, like rats. He'd been good at it, once, that voice; soft and polite, unobtrusive, edge-of-innocent. A sad parody of his mother's, really, though he'd never intended it as insult, or even satire...
But then he met the smaller one's eyes, and realized that wouldn't do at all, just judging from their angle. Because the one thing he'd utterly neglected to do in his hastily-improvised attempt at a disguise, he only now realized, was to remove the fresh new marigold from his suit-jacket's boutonniere.
Forgot to take off my gloves, too, Mordecai thought, numbly. Then: Oh, goyisher kopf.
“Hey boss, that's him, ain't it? The Fighting—”
“—gentleman of Semitic extraction? Yes, looks like.” To Mordecai: “My name is Drago, Mister Heller...or do you prefer Metzger? Goldberg?”
No point in pretending. “Heller will do,” Mordecai said, fitting his spectacles back on and wincing as both of them rushed suddenly into focus—especially that other agent, who was twice as ugly as he'd seemed with them off, and already starting to crack his knuckles in anticipation. “Am I under arrest?”
“Soon enough, I'm afraid.” Drago peered closer, looking almost sympathetic. “You seem as though you've had a rough day, thus far.”
“No rougher than anyone else out there, I suppose.” Automatically, his hand fluttered towards his waistcoat, feeling for his watch, only to be arrested mid-motion by the bruiser's mitt. Startled, Mordecai turned on him, not quite able to stop himself from hissing; the bruiser's other fist went back, freezing as Agent Drago laid a calming hand on his shoulder.
“No need for that,” he assured him. Then, to Mordecai again: “You understand why we're cautious, don't you, given your reputation? But you really don't want to shoot a Federal agent, no matter what liberties might get taken, believe you me—it causes no end of trouble.”
“What makes you think I was going to—?”
“'Cause we know all about you, buddy, that's how,” Agent O'Moron put in, before Drago could stop him. “You ain't no mystery. Just a New York Jew with a couple of German guns, and a rap sheet the size of my arm.”
Mordecai blinked at him. “Unlikely,” he said.
“Think you're pretty funny, huh, Sheeny? Well, wait 'til we get you all nice and booked—extradition's automatic these days, on Prohi offenses. And you know what they got in New York, right? The Chair.”
At that, Mordecai's otherwise cold heart surprised him by jumping like a fish, sharp enough to knock itself half-cocked on the inside of his ribs. But if either man expected more from him on the outside than a slight narrowing of the eyes, they were going to be bitterly disappointed. I'll make you kill me first, he thought, but didn't say, allowing his other hand to inch up under his coat-sleeve by slight degrees, 'til the fingers folded so far he could almost—almost—touch his own wrist.
Luckily, Drago seemed momentarily more concerned with his partner's posturing than with anything Mordecai might be doing. “That's more than enough of that, Lohan,” he sighed. “I'm sure Mister Heller wants to cooperate.”
“Oh, I ain't too sure about that, at all—”
“Yes, well, let's just pretend otherwise, shall we? Now, if you could perhaps be persuaded to get out your handcuffs, before any of us get much older...”
Lohan twitched the irons in question from his belt, snapping one cuff open with a flourish. At the same time, however, Mordecai turned his prisoned hand 'til he felt the agent's thumb give way, and used the resultant struggle to bring up that switchblade Viktor had given him back in '21. He cut crosswise down Lohan's inner forearm at a neat forty-five degree angle, making it spurt bright enough that Drago grabbed on tight, like anyone afflicted with basic human empathy supposedly would.
Thin yells chased after Mordecai as he slipped between them, taking the alley's corner so fast he almost skidded: A general yammer of Oh, what the hell—Lohan, goddamnit, how many times do I have to tell you, you don't taunt the collar—, followed by Sorry boss, shit, just please DON'T LET GO—
(They should hire less men for muscle and more men for brains, if they want to keep up, he thought, feeling vaguely offended on Drago's behalf. But then again, if they did, it simply would make his job that much harder, wouldn't it? So—just as well, really.)
Thinking, at the same time: My head, my side. Is that blood, again? Did something...rip, just then? Should I worry?
(You don't come, nearly a veek. I vorry.)
“Don't be an old woman,” he whispered to himself, knowing there was no point in waiting to find out. Besides which, all he could suppose in the end was that Drago indeed chose not to let Lohan bleed out after all, strong as the temptation to do so must've been, and that neither of them thought to use their free hands to go for their guns, in the interim. Because when Mordecai slammed up hard against the nearest cop-car's door, hooked the guy inside in the jaw through the open window, pulled it open to push him out then floored it, he left everything behind in the same hot grind of gears: Drago, Lohan, the Maribel, the cops. Everything.
He drove aimlessly, nothing on his mind except the vague idea of getting out of town as quickly as possible, 'til it all became equally tight and dim, winking out like a shot bulb. Came to in a ditch who knew how long later with his head still bruised from the steering wheel, and oh, that wasn't good, either. Perhaps he'd already lost more blood than he'd thought.
The stitch in his side pulled tighter, distracting him from the wound on his lower back, the ache of both calves as he stomped down the road, coat flapping shamefully, shoes ankle-deep in mud. Felt the touch of fever, prickly heat all up and down him, rain misting his pince-nez 'til they fogged intolerably, hat-brim plastered and sagging; he fell to counting his scars to distract himself, then Viktor's. Then began to forget whose belonged to who, aside from the very obvious...
Get inside, fool. Get shelter, water, someplace to lie down, before you pass out (again). Food doesn't matter. Wait it out. Wait it out.
Pain he could take, always: It was, if not a friend, at least a well-known quantity. But this awful meandering, this wandering—his clockwork brains whirring to, sludged and jumpy, one oh-so-precious cog at a time—
Wait it...out... he thought once more, teeth all a-chatter, dice shook in a box. And kept on going, one wavering step at a time, until the darkness in front of him ate everything.
(To Be Continued.)
Fandom: Lackadaisy
Mordecai Heller/Viktor Vasko
Behind that one small shop across from the Maribel Hotel, Mordecai stood at the alley's end a long moment, shivering, the shock of his wound having long since knocked whatever cover his coat should have given him all to hell. It had started raining almost the very minute he'd left his no-longer-favourite teashop, and hadn't paused yet. Now he'd developed an annoying sniffle, and his pince-nez were so irretrievably misted over that he could barely see his own watch-face. Under normal circumstances, just the tick of the watch itself—steady, repetitious, precise—would provide some sort of comfort. But these were hardly normal circumstances...
No, hardly. Especially so since, as it only now occurred to him, Mordecai hadn't really seen “normal” for over a year, at the very least.
And how are we reckoning, exactly? His brain asked him, annoyingly calm. Oh yes, that's right: Pretty much from the moment you fired a bullet into Viktor Vasko's knee, then walked away, leaving him yelling about how he was going to kill you next time I see you, Mordecai! at your back.
Flipping the watch shut and fisting his hands in his pockets, Mordecai told that voice to shut up, firmly. Which didn't help even one bit, as he'd somehow known it probably wouldn't.
It was his long-dormant bookkeeper's instincts, Mordecai supposed, waking up from their reborn-as-a- jumped-up-thug nap. Things simply had to be juggled 'til they balanced, but if he didn't have nearly enough information to make a real stab at analysis (which he didn't, clearly), the best thing—the only thing—was to gain distance. To get himself someplace “safe”, always assuming there was such a thing, and stay there 'till he could wait this out before trying again, with better information.
Viktor, somewhere very much not his brain suggested, almost sadly. But: NO, his brain replied, overly stern maybe, yet not exactly incorrect. Because that was...a bad idea, even more so than his initial impulse to send the Savoys some sort of surreptitious S.O.S.; whatever marginal amusement value he might now have for them set aside, they were both admirably practical animals, unlikely to risk themselves for nothing but pure goodwill, or even the lure of a second drunken bedroom go-'round. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise him overly if they already knew about the $3000, and were looking to collect it themselves...
Viktor wouldn't do that, though, the same below-the-belt “voice” whispered. Which was certainly true, so far as that went; though a classic misanthrope in most matters, once Viktor gave his loyalty, it was never withdrawn, no matter the consequences. As both of them knew all too well.
And here there came a strung-together flash of disparate moments, all those times he'd performed surreptitious surveillance on his no-longer-former partner, over the last twelve or so months—those times they'd almost met again by accident, up to and including that still startlingly recent night when he'd plundered Lackadaisy's gun-storage room; Viktor had passed with a literal arm's reach of him, so close he'd paused in mid-limp to sniff the air, as though he'd caught a trace of Mordecai's pomade. Then gone on, not looking back, while Mordecai crouched there with his heart hammering, slowly relinquishing his grip on the weapon he'd brought with him.
The fierceness with which he'd missed Viktor during their...separation would never cease to bother him, probably; even now, with that rift supposedly re-sutured, it was frustrating, improbable, inexplicable. A scar he still found himself picking at constantly, perhaps in hopes it would never fully heal.
Pap, that's all it is, he thought, grimly, baring his teeth into the wet wind. Froth, foolishness, sheer schmaltz. Never took you for one of those sentimental types, Mister Heller, you with your careful double-ledger system account-keeping, your well-oiled clockwork soul...
Yes, yes. And yet—this was the truth, also: A year ago, though, he wouldn't have been standing here drenched, skin-soaked and shivering, carrying on whole conversations without ever opening his mouth. Instead, he would've simply gone wherever he thought Viktor most likely to be, and stayed there.
He couldn't do that now, however, because doing so would lead directly to Viktor trying to protect him, as always, leading in turn to a wide range of potential outcomes, all equally bad: A beating from the cops, prison, death row. One way or the other, Viktor would try to help him, and fail, thus leaving Mordecai responsible for having gotten him killed, as well as crippled. And for all that it would undoubtedly be the huge fool's fault, if so—he frankly couldn't see it happening any other way—Mordecai was nevertheless forced, in all honesty, to admit to a good deal of annoyance at the prospect.
You haf been reckless, Mordecai, Viktor's voice told him, half-memory, half imagination. You vill get in trouble.
To which Mordecai heard himself snap back, internally: Oh? But you see, I already am in trouble, you immense oaf, so...so there. How do you like those apples?
(There. That was telling him.)
Current hallucination over and done with, therefore, he strode decisively forwards, slipping in through the back door, which clattered to behind him. The shopkeeper looked 'round, eyes immediately twice their usual size; Mordecai brushed past his own urge to snarl at him, instead rapping out—
“You know who I am?”
“Yuh...yessir, Mister Heller.”
“Then you've probably some idea why I'm here, I take it. But if not: I need to use the private line. Mister Sweet's private line.”
The man nodded, twitching towards that closet-sized hole he called an office. “It's, uh...in there.”
“Good.” Mordecai fixed him with Glare Number Three, extra-strength (patent pending). And suggested, as he did: “I wouldn't go anywhere.”
“...'course not.”
The phone, once picked up, rang and rang, belaying the Maribel switchboard's vaunted efficiency. Mordecai resisted the urge to drum his fingers, not particularly wanting to touch—well, anything, in here. Eventually, just as he was about to slam the receiver back down, Asa Sweet's familiar “charming” wheeze came on at last, a running-to-fat man's idea of verbal calisthenics. Drawling, as it did: “Morning, or maybe afternoon—hard to tell, with all that cloud cover. This here's Asa Sweet. And you are?”
“On the run, Mister Sweet. Bleeding from my back. Worth $3,000, apparently—alive or dead, one assumes, though the general emphasis so far has definitely been on 'dead'. So naturally I thought of you, fount of all information in this town that you claim to be, with fingers in every pie; I don't suppose you'd happen to know anything pertinent to my situation, would you?”
He heard Asa draw breath, not quite a gasp, then audibly smooth himself back out, pouring on the honey. “...well, hello there, son. As it happens, I've been waitin' on your call—but you see, I'm sorta engaged, right this very moment. Care to check back in a few?”
“Given what I had to do to get here, not really, no. Engaged how?”
“Oh, this 'n' that. You looked outside today?”
“Looked...? I've been outside, for some time, if that's what you—”
But it isn't, obviously, and Mordecai well knew it. No window in the “office”, so he craned his head sidelong, peering out through the shop's waterlogged front window. Saw the Maribel, all its lights lit and its banners flapping, its fourteen storeys a ridiculously elaborate wedding-cake advertisement for the Marigold below, legal business piled on top of illegal; the street, more crammed than usual with Henry Ford's finest product, a truck or two—no, make that a very specific sort of truck, two or even three Black Mariahs, surrounded by a general moil of hard men in suits with their shotguns racked, flappers and sots being pushed inside in knots by blue uniforms in dripping raincoats...
Oh, and that wasn't good. Any of it.
“Unwelcome guests, from what I gather,” Mordecai said, carefully. “A raid. Alcohol and Tobacco?”
“That's right.”
“So—not someplace I'd be welcome, really, right about now. Given my line of work.”
“Sadly, no. Y'all keep yourself well, though, and I'm sure we can work somethin' out later.”
Mordecai wasn't sure of that at all, obviously, but knew better than push the point. So—
“Yes,” he agreed, tonelessly. And let the receiver click to.
Emerging from the “office” after a few frantic seconds' de-grooming—coat reversed and shoulder-holsters dumped, hat shoved unceremoniously down the back of his pants along with one of his guns, which nuzzled his spine's hollow while the other weighted down one gartered sock, hair mussed high and his pince-nez stowed gingerly way in an exterior-turned-interior pocket—Mordecai squinted around for the shopkeeper, who he didn't find, and hadn't expected to. With one hand steady on the wall, therefore, he eked back the same way he'd come before suddenly wheeling to slam the door back open, poised to run—
(a thing he hated passionately to do, always had, unless there was no choice, which there very much wasn't)
—only to stop almost in mid-lunge, confronted as he found himself by two of the very same Prohibition agents he'd just been watching: One taller, broader, probably Irish, with that usual lawman's idiot bruiser grin, the other smaller, sleeker—Italian? That seemed unlikely, but he certainly had the look—with an unlit pipe held loose in one hand, like some dime-store Sherlock Holmes.
Can I help you? He considered asking in Old Mordecai's voice, the one he barely remembered anymore—from New York, before, when all he did was sit in the corner and pray nobody noticed him as he added, subtracted, divided, multiplied. Tracked other people's money, hid it, sent it scurrying all over the city he'd once called his own, like rats. He'd been good at it, once, that voice; soft and polite, unobtrusive, edge-of-innocent. A sad parody of his mother's, really, though he'd never intended it as insult, or even satire...
But then he met the smaller one's eyes, and realized that wouldn't do at all, just judging from their angle. Because the one thing he'd utterly neglected to do in his hastily-improvised attempt at a disguise, he only now realized, was to remove the fresh new marigold from his suit-jacket's boutonniere.
Forgot to take off my gloves, too, Mordecai thought, numbly. Then: Oh, goyisher kopf.
“Hey boss, that's him, ain't it? The Fighting—”
“—gentleman of Semitic extraction? Yes, looks like.” To Mordecai: “My name is Drago, Mister Heller...or do you prefer Metzger? Goldberg?”
No point in pretending. “Heller will do,” Mordecai said, fitting his spectacles back on and wincing as both of them rushed suddenly into focus—especially that other agent, who was twice as ugly as he'd seemed with them off, and already starting to crack his knuckles in anticipation. “Am I under arrest?”
“Soon enough, I'm afraid.” Drago peered closer, looking almost sympathetic. “You seem as though you've had a rough day, thus far.”
“No rougher than anyone else out there, I suppose.” Automatically, his hand fluttered towards his waistcoat, feeling for his watch, only to be arrested mid-motion by the bruiser's mitt. Startled, Mordecai turned on him, not quite able to stop himself from hissing; the bruiser's other fist went back, freezing as Agent Drago laid a calming hand on his shoulder.
“No need for that,” he assured him. Then, to Mordecai again: “You understand why we're cautious, don't you, given your reputation? But you really don't want to shoot a Federal agent, no matter what liberties might get taken, believe you me—it causes no end of trouble.”
“What makes you think I was going to—?”
“'Cause we know all about you, buddy, that's how,” Agent O'Moron put in, before Drago could stop him. “You ain't no mystery. Just a New York Jew with a couple of German guns, and a rap sheet the size of my arm.”
Mordecai blinked at him. “Unlikely,” he said.
“Think you're pretty funny, huh, Sheeny? Well, wait 'til we get you all nice and booked—extradition's automatic these days, on Prohi offenses. And you know what they got in New York, right? The Chair.”
At that, Mordecai's otherwise cold heart surprised him by jumping like a fish, sharp enough to knock itself half-cocked on the inside of his ribs. But if either man expected more from him on the outside than a slight narrowing of the eyes, they were going to be bitterly disappointed. I'll make you kill me first, he thought, but didn't say, allowing his other hand to inch up under his coat-sleeve by slight degrees, 'til the fingers folded so far he could almost—almost—touch his own wrist.
Luckily, Drago seemed momentarily more concerned with his partner's posturing than with anything Mordecai might be doing. “That's more than enough of that, Lohan,” he sighed. “I'm sure Mister Heller wants to cooperate.”
“Oh, I ain't too sure about that, at all—”
“Yes, well, let's just pretend otherwise, shall we? Now, if you could perhaps be persuaded to get out your handcuffs, before any of us get much older...”
Lohan twitched the irons in question from his belt, snapping one cuff open with a flourish. At the same time, however, Mordecai turned his prisoned hand 'til he felt the agent's thumb give way, and used the resultant struggle to bring up that switchblade Viktor had given him back in '21. He cut crosswise down Lohan's inner forearm at a neat forty-five degree angle, making it spurt bright enough that Drago grabbed on tight, like anyone afflicted with basic human empathy supposedly would.
Thin yells chased after Mordecai as he slipped between them, taking the alley's corner so fast he almost skidded: A general yammer of Oh, what the hell—Lohan, goddamnit, how many times do I have to tell you, you don't taunt the collar—, followed by Sorry boss, shit, just please DON'T LET GO—
(They should hire less men for muscle and more men for brains, if they want to keep up, he thought, feeling vaguely offended on Drago's behalf. But then again, if they did, it simply would make his job that much harder, wouldn't it? So—just as well, really.)
Thinking, at the same time: My head, my side. Is that blood, again? Did something...rip, just then? Should I worry?
(You don't come, nearly a veek. I vorry.)
“Don't be an old woman,” he whispered to himself, knowing there was no point in waiting to find out. Besides which, all he could suppose in the end was that Drago indeed chose not to let Lohan bleed out after all, strong as the temptation to do so must've been, and that neither of them thought to use their free hands to go for their guns, in the interim. Because when Mordecai slammed up hard against the nearest cop-car's door, hooked the guy inside in the jaw through the open window, pulled it open to push him out then floored it, he left everything behind in the same hot grind of gears: Drago, Lohan, the Maribel, the cops. Everything.
He drove aimlessly, nothing on his mind except the vague idea of getting out of town as quickly as possible, 'til it all became equally tight and dim, winking out like a shot bulb. Came to in a ditch who knew how long later with his head still bruised from the steering wheel, and oh, that wasn't good, either. Perhaps he'd already lost more blood than he'd thought.
The stitch in his side pulled tighter, distracting him from the wound on his lower back, the ache of both calves as he stomped down the road, coat flapping shamefully, shoes ankle-deep in mud. Felt the touch of fever, prickly heat all up and down him, rain misting his pince-nez 'til they fogged intolerably, hat-brim plastered and sagging; he fell to counting his scars to distract himself, then Viktor's. Then began to forget whose belonged to who, aside from the very obvious...
Get inside, fool. Get shelter, water, someplace to lie down, before you pass out (again). Food doesn't matter. Wait it out. Wait it out.
Pain he could take, always: It was, if not a friend, at least a well-known quantity. But this awful meandering, this wandering—his clockwork brains whirring to, sludged and jumpy, one oh-so-precious cog at a time—
Wait it...out... he thought once more, teeth all a-chatter, dice shook in a box. And kept on going, one wavering step at a time, until the darkness in front of him ate everything.
(To Be Continued.)