Posted by Cheryl on June 25, 2001 at 18:43:54:
It was an odd effect, the natural sunlight entering into the dim bar through the open door. Denny was cleaning up the bar area and the light glared in his eyes; he grabbed up his shades to see who had entered the bar. As soon as he did he grunted, getting someone's attention deeper in the bar, someone the newcomer couldn't see until she took off her trendoid Steve Maddens and let her own eyes adjust to the gloom. It wasn't but a minute until a person, a rather imposing person, was blocking her way. She took her time looking up from his t-shirted chest to his hostile face, and took a little longer smiling. "Hey, there, you're Ben, right?"
The guy's jaw was set. Pretty much anyone on the planet would agree that this was a guy you didn't want to disagree with. "I don't remember being introduced to you, but I do remember being told you're not as welcome inside as you used to be."
The woman nodded exaggeratedly, multicolored hair flopping into brown eyes. "*Two* true statements! And on your first try too! Hey, maybe there's a reason why Sam trusts you with this place." Denny started to say something but Ben put a hand up and Denny let it go. It wasn't that Ben owned Denny or anything, but they'd gotten a pretty good working arrangement going here at Sam's and it hinged pretty much on everyone knowing what job they did and doing it well. Ben was Sam's right hand when Sam wasn't around and that was fine with Denny, he had plenty of work and enjoyed the work he did.
Some of the work didn't even seem much like work at all.
Ben answered the broad. "Look, we can do the polite chat thing-" She interrupted him, "-somehow I doubt that-" and he just continued. "-or we could do the insult thing-" this time he put a hand up to forestall the inevitable-"and yeah, we could probably do that better. And there are other places we could go with this, places that might be more fun for me than for you. But it's so much easier to keep it simple and tell you, bar's closed, Sam's not available, Cheryl's not here, and I'll bet you could catch a plane out of RDU in a couple hours if you started that direction now."
The brown eyes got even larger and the woman grinned, widely. She looked rather like someone particularly pleased by some observation made by a particularly bright older child.
And it didn't seem to bother her much that if she kept that shit up she was going to end up hurt. Not in a way she'd like, just hurt.
"Bra-VO, Ben, that was excellent-" she held up a hand-" and I'm not being sarcastic. You put me in my place with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of insult and I consider myself rather a connoisseur of both. Now. As you said, we can waste time by one method or another, in this case our back-and-forth exchange on any fucking level, or you can get Sam." She shrugged. "Those are really the options, Ben, sorry, nothing personal, but I need to see him now, and I'd be willing to bet he'll be, well, not happy but more than willing to see me too. No muss, no fuss, just tell him I'm here and we're done with our business, Ben." She grinned, her full plum-tinted lips emphasizing her white teeth. "Until, of course, you follow me back to the Marriott tonight. Have fun last night? Doesn't look all that comfortable, but then I'm not from around here, this rain thing is kinda alien to me."
Ben took two steps towards her and the bar was so empty and cavernous that the double <<snick>> echoed all the way through the place as the well-oiled flipknife in her hand and the modified switch in his hand both opened at nearly the same moment. Denny looked slightly stunned as he realized they had nearly identical smiles on their faces. He couldn't figure out why the fuck they looked that way, was it bluff, did they both really think they'd walk away unscathed, and then he saw what it was, it was pure fucking adrenaline-junkie high; something was about to happen and no matter what happened these two were glad to go beyond the day-to-day fucking-ass-bullshit and into the realm of the real, of nerves singing muscles dancing and blood flowing and the decisions made not about ledgers balancing or which bus to catch but more about permanent damage and who was willing to go farther, faster.
And then from Ben and Verity's point of view Sam ruined it from the top of the stairs.
"Goddammit Ben, can't you keep one little girl out of the place without both of you drawing knives? It's off hours, did you forget that or was it all just too exciting to keep to the rules about this place?"
Ben took a really deep breath. He was nobody's flunky, he'd done plenty all on his lonesome, Sam sure as shit wouldn't have trusted him if that weren't true, and it was hard to come down off of this, take his eyes off those of the fucking bitch in front of him and give up the time-out-of-mind between them that had nearly happened. Verity clicked her knife away and stepped back a bit even though she hadn't taken any ground in the first place, putting her head and her eyes down as if she felt bad about what she'd done. But Ben knew that was bullshit, it was just how she put all those feelings away, by pretending she'd done a bad thing, the way everybody like them had to tuck it all back inside one way or another. His switch was already in his pocket and he'd wiped the early sweat from his brow.
Sam leaned on the railing, sleeves rolled up, hat and glasses off and barked "close that fucking door, and if she wants to come see me, she knows where my office is." And then he was gone.
Verity walked past Ben and as she did she nodded gravely, not mocking and not looking superior. Just recognition, that was all. He realized in the past few seconds he'd come to understand this broad. Not like her, not like Cheryl, or Sonya, or some of the others, but he understood what was going on with her. There was something inside her that was inside him. He almost thought that in some ways maybe she was a little more like the killers in the place than the girls who came to die. There was something hard in her and something that took joy in the fight, not the losing.
He bet she was hell behind the wheel of a fast car.
Verity stopped at the jukebox on the way to the stairs and found a Steely Dan tune she needed to hear, and then a Warren Zevon. "Deacon Blues" would be followed by "My Shit's Fucked Up" and she figured that pretty much summed up her life to this point. Especially her life where Sam was concerned. Then she played a few more, "Some Girls Wander by Mistake" for Angel and Nick Cave's "Mack the Knife" for Ben and a few things so that when she left the soundtrack would appeal to her. After that she hurried up the stairs, not trying to do some sort of L.A. fashionably-late shit. She wanted this to go well. She needed it to go well, and so did Cheryl, and from what Verity had seen in that place <<beyond>> when she'd knelt in the alley just before dawn this morning (losing Ben's trail so completely in the wet darkness that when she got back to the hotel he thought she'd never left) Angel needed this even more. And since the dead were Verity's specialty, she was going to make this good. Very damned good.
At the pushed-but-not-latched closed door she paused and tugged at her dark-plum velour low-cut shirt and black brushed-silk skirt. That, thick black tights, and boots she could do just about anything in that still looked sexy, finished the clothing. Eyeliner and plum shadow, deep plum gloss and pale makeup masked her face, a mask good enough to fool Sam, she hoped. Fooling Sam was fucking hard to do. Jewelry was leather wristbands, a collar with a black obsidian mirror hanging from it for the power it lended, and human finger-bone earrings. Who the human had been wasn't the issue just this minute.
If she'd been all pink and pretty like last night he'd have laughed at her and it all would have been blown. If she'd been leathered- and weaponed-up like Cheryl they would have been just as screwed by his knowledge of what this was really about.
No, what she needed was a look that would make Sam think she'd picked it just for him, to draw him to her, to make her look sexy with that edge that drew his attention so well. Oh, big-titted blonds in next-to- or actually-nothing did fine. But there was something to a girl who was confident but still slutty enough to show her desire that pushed a few of Sam's buttons and oh Gods for all their sakes she hoped she'd done it.
She pushed at the door and found him with his back to her, looking at the weapons cabinet. She came in and closed the door but he still didn't say anything. On her rubber-soled boots she padded to him and was inches from his back about to put hands on his shoulders when he whirled and grabbed her wrists, his eyes green fire. "What the fuck are you doing here, Verity? I should kick your ass out of here so far you'd land in Carolina Beach."
Deep breath, deep fucking breath, gotta do this fast and right. She let the feeling of his hands on her wrists flow down well-worn pathways in her mind, and then, with an effort and with pain that no one would understand, dropped walls she'd spent years building and let his eyes catch and hold hers. Her lips parted, and her tongue darted out. She realized she hadn't done that intentionally and inwardly she smiled. It was working. Now if it didn't work so fucking well that when this was done she'd end up as broken mentally as poor Angel had been in body and spirit.
"It's good to see you too, Sam. But I didn't find Carolina Beach all that pretty." She'd put enough warmth and soft humour in that that he dropped her wrists and put the desk between them.
"Don't try to shit a shitter, Verity. You're up to something here, and for some reason Cheryl hasn't put you back in your place. No one wants you here, Verity, you know that very well indeed. Then there's that email you wrote me about Angel, all those questions about my security and how Angel died. You're playing some game, Verity, and this is my place and
I
won't
have
it.
Are we clear?"
Verity winced. Ah, fuck. That actually hurt, what he'd said and how. That wall was crumbled like some old L.A. mansion and she was going to end up just as broken and she had to let it happen. The quiver in her voice was real, fuck it all. "Sam.please, I'm sorry about the letter but I knew that Cheryl was upset and I was trying to help, but that's not why-"
He leaned forward on the desk, hitting it hard with his forearms. "Fine, Verity, fine, you've always been so fucking honest, `that's not why', she says. Then what is? Why aren't you in your weird little aerie in Laurel fucking Canyon? Why aren't you in Raleigh or New York or New Orleans or with some other guy? Why are you here fucking with me and mine?" She started to speak but before she could he put a hand up, held her eyes with eyes as if with steel, and went on. "No. Before any bullshit comes out of that pretty mouth of yours, I want to know. You wrote that letter about Angel, and I want to know everything you know about her and what happened to her. You do that, and maybe I'll believe one or two other words you say. But that's up to you, give it up or don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."
Verity chewed on her lip, glad for the reprieve. She and Cheryl had already come up with how this should go. "Cheryl was upset, I guess, and one night was up late and ended up writing me, Sam. I don't know why me, I was in her address list, she wanted to talk to someone she didn't really care about because this was so important, I don't know. So after she wrote me I just did some web-page stuff, called up the News-Observer files and looked into stuff from my own files, and wrote her a letter with what I had. It wasn't anything, she didn't think it was important and I don't either."
He just looked at her, so cold. She'd remembered warm eyes, frightening yes, but with feeling there for her, but it was gone, all gone now. "Um.I just pointed out the similarities to a couple cases in Los Angeles, old cases, ones you probably know, how the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, had her hair cut and washed.and how a killing they thought was related to the Dahlia had words carved into her, things like "cunt" and "bitch". And Cheryl didn't write me back, Sam, but.."
Now. It had to be now. She had to put up so much smoke now he'd never see the mirrors until it was too late and she and Cheryl had done the deed. That note of need in her voice, leaning forward, cleavage obvious, hands palms up reaching for him.
"..but Sam, after that contact with her, I reread some of our old letters, the early ones, and the stories, the ones about Mexico and Los Angeles, and I had a free ticket from frequent flyer miles and thought maybe I could help Cheryl get over Angel and-"
So ice cold. Like the temperature dropped a few degrees in here. "Dammit Verity. You think we can start this up again, don't you. You didn't hear, you didn't listen to me, or you forgot, and you're here thinking.I don't know, thinking that in Cheryl's and my "time of need" you can be here, don't you."
She used the chance and jumped up, going around the desk on her knees before him and grasping his hands, her face close to hers. "No, I don't want it back, Sam, but there were things we could have done, games we could have played, you play them with other women by now anyway, I just want to be a girl here at your bar, not important to you, but I just want, well you know what I want, you know that hasn't changed, oh Sam, can't you be the one to see I die the way I want to, please?" She put a real whimper into that last tone. She needed him to not only push her away but to feel really nothing but scorn. She needed to be invisible to him. Then he'd call Ben off, and Denny off Cheryl, possibly. Then he'd let Cheryl do whatever she wanted with Verity because he'd be convinced his lifemate was as disgusted as he and just being a little kinder about it.
And then Cheryl and Verity could take care of the prick who took care of Angel, and then after that they could take the energy and set poor Angel's spirit free. Poor doomed Angel, born a lost nobody, found for such a short time, and lost again merely because some pathetic, inadequate bastard wanted to hurt Cheryl and knew that was the only way he could do it. Those messages carved in Angel, "slut". "Bitch". Messages to Cheryl. That fucker's death would make Angel's look like euthanasia.
But she pushed that back down as Sam lifted her by her upper arms, moved her forcibly to the other chair and got her a tissue. She realized she was crying and grinned internally. Those tears had nothing to do with Sam's rejection of her plea to kill her, and everything to do with Angel's dying alone and helpless after such a brief moment of hope in her life.
"Verity." Sam had that professorial `I know you're unstable dear but I know best' tone in his voice. She hid her smirk. She always did have the wrong humour reactions to things like this. "Verity I don't know if the death you want is right for you or not, but I know damned well I won't be your killer. You know why."
He put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. Now the inner smirk turned to a snarl; she hated that superior attitude of his so much she wanted to slap it off his face. "If you want to stay a while, look around for someone, you go ahead, I'll tell the guys. If Cheryl is willing to talk with you, help you, maybe she could help you find someone." His eyes were mock-warm, his face said he wanted her out of here in five minutes so he could get to that paperwork. "I even think that pretty little-girl outfit you were wearing might be something good for you, might draw the kind of man-"
"Oh, but Sam, Sam Gods I need you please!" She cried. He was in the zone, he'd never notice how over-the-top it was. I'd like to thank the Academy. You like me, you really like me!!
"Verity, no. You know all our history, and with Angel and everything, I have a lot to do. Look around (with this he gave a faux conspiratorial grin). I think you might find something.to your liking. Okay?"
Sniff. Sniff. Blow into the tissue. Glance up with big brown eyes. "You (hitch in voice) think so?"
That expression. Oh thank Gods maybe I'll get those orders done today after all. "I do."
"And the guys won't be so mean to me now."
"Not at all, I'll tell them to let you go where you want, see what you want."
(I WIN! I FUCKING WIN! I want the new car and the trailer, Chuck!) One last assurance, no suspicions left here.
She put one hand on his, let that touch become electric as she knew it could even if they both fought it. "Sam, you're sure, I mean, I only get one death."
His eyes were troubled, more than she expected, but that was just fine, he was letting all that trouble go in the wrong fucking direction. "No, Verity. Never. You may very well find it here, find someone fine enough to deserve you." He touched her face. "You deserve nothing less than the best, Verity."
Oh? And what had Angel deserved, and why hadn't you made sure she'd gotten it? No, that wasn't fair, it was just having her soul so tangled in Angel's from a few hours ago, the dead so often confused, who was hurting them all mixed up with who they had screamed for in their heads in those final moments, not even sure the physical hurting had stopped. No. Go back, Angel. I'll be there soon to help. Let me do this, now.
A big-eyed glance at the door. "But it'll never be.you?"
"Never."
And as Verity walked out into the sunshine hearing Donald Fagen sing "I believe I just got the goodbye look" with a grave nod to Ben, she finally let herself smile. Cheryl would be so pleased. Point, Verity and Cheryl. They'd have to watch it.
But now most of all the person who'd have to watch it was the fuckface who killed Angel. And no matter how much he watched it wouldn't help.
For long.
The fucker had just got the goodbye look. She began to sing. "Won't you pour me a Cuban Breeze, Gretchen."