At long last: sleazy!Alan for tm_northstar
Remember that drabble meme? No, you say? It was posted four months ago, you say? Well, this began in response to that and then proceeded to devour my brain. I apologize for the utterly ridiculous length and my equally ridiculous attempt at a plot.
It was a beautiful suit-sand colored, understated, matter of fact in its elegance-and it moved with the grace and fluidity of its wearer, rippling ever so slightly as he raised his arm to snap his fingers in Alan’s ear.
“Alan.” In either exasperation or mock horror, Jean-Paul bugged out his eyes. “Alan. Look. At. The. Road.”
Swatting away Jean-Paul’s hand, Alan did as directed. There wasn’t much to see-the street was riddled with cracks and lined with washed-out billboards depicting washed-up celebrities. Hard to believe fifteen minutes’ judicious application of his foot to the gas pedal could return them to Crane, Poole & Schmidt’s gleaming windows and sleek furnishings.
“You were checking me out.”
“The suit.” Alan’s eyes strayed from the asphalt; his right hand abandoned the wheel to swerve through the air, tracing the contours of the garment. “I was admiring-“
The car thumped into a pothole.
“I don’t mind,” Jean-Paul said sweetly, leaning forward to fiddle with the radio dial. Country, hip hop, and rapid-fire Spanish burst from the speakers in quick succession. “I’m used to it.”
The languid, breathy notes of a tenor sax-Alan belatedly recognized Pink Floyd-threaded their way through the stereo system. Jean-Paul slumped back in his seat, eyes bright, mouth twitched into a smile too unselfconscious to be termed a smirk.
“I was wondering, if you must know,” Alan said, “how many weeks at Kelly’s office it cost you. My guess was three.”
“Are we there yet?” Jean-Paul propped hundred-dollar loafers on the dash. Haughtily he tossed his head-every inch, in that moment, the son of a wealthy ambassador. “You drive like an old man.”
They left the Mercedes, its pristine windows begging for the touch of a crowbar, snuggled up to the curb outside a boarded-up supermarket. This was the sort of neighborhood that would go unchanged, impervious to revitalization efforts, indifferent to beautification initiatives, until the day bulldozers flattened the sagging porches and steam shovels bit into the pavement.
“You haven’t told me what we’re doing here,” Jean-Paul said as they halted before a wrought-iron gate.
“You’re right.” Alan brushed his fingers over rusting hinges, peering intently as though in search of some fatal design flaw. Then he placed a hand on one of the thin iron poles and wrenched the gate open, smiling at the resultant shriek of long-disused metal, the satisfaction of a feat of physical strength successfully performed, or in anticipation of Jean-Paul’s reaction to his next remark. “I haven’t.”
Behind the gate, adorned with skid marks and smeared with foul-smelling testaments to the permeability of the below-average trash bag, was a narrow stretch of concrete. Jean-Paul stepped briskly through, glanced left, glanced right, and, curiosity extinguished, began rummaging for a cigarette. “An alley? Kinky, Alan.” His smirk and the match flared as one. “Okay. Shove me up against the wall and have your way with me, but if you think I’m getting on my knees in this suit, cher-“
“A man after my own heart,” Alan said blandly, clanging the gate shut and smoothing his tie.
“M. Shore, I’m serious.”
“And well you should be. A fine suit is a serious matter.”
“Serious about knowing what’s going on.” Jean-Paul smoked impatiently, as though eager to reduce each cigarette to a butt, a husk to be discarded or ground out. “I hired you. I therefore tell you-“
“Two things to bear in mind about the great hulking beast we Americans affectionately refer to as our legal system: one”-nearing the end of the alley, now, Alan veered left into a weathered doorway-“it does things in its own time. Every trial, every suit, every imaginable legal proceeding involves a tremendous amount of heel-dragging.”
As he spoke, Alan jiggled the doorknob. Held in place by a single loose screw, it seemed as likely to clatter to the ground at his feet as to open the door. “Sometimes-frequently, in fact-the very object of these proceedings is to cause delays. Tie your competitor up in litigation and you buy yourself (at no small expense, I’ll grant you) a few years to duplicate or surpass that groundbreaking new product. Patience is-“
Something gave; all at once, like a tooth wrenched free of a confining gum, the knob tumbled from the door. Alan stood blinking at the lump of metal clutched in his hand.
The screw tinkled to the ground.
“Patience is essential,” he concluded, with no appreciable shift in tone.
Jean-Paul snorted and reached for another cigarette.
Knobless doors could be opened, of course-Alan poked a finger into the riddle of metal to which the knob had so stubbornly clung and, with a bit of experimentation and a squashed pinkie, succeeded in teasing back the bolt.
“I hope you don’t expect me to be impressed.”
Alan arched an eyebrow. “Sorry, should I perhaps have kicked it in?”
“I probably could have,” Jean-Paul said airily. “I also could have flown to an open window, or up on the roof, or-“
“Or, with that unspeakably sexy accent of yours, enticed somebody to open their door.”
“Alan.” With a lazy jerk of his shoulders, Jean-Paul shoved off from the wall. He flicked his cigarette away, smirked, anger forgotten in a flush of self-satisfaction. “My accent’s so sexy I could’ve enticed the door.”
Alan shook his head and locked the smile that threatened behind pursed lips. “Sometimes,” he murmured.
“Sometimes what?” Jean-Paul said, voice suddenly sharp, words bristling like the hackles of a cat.
“Nothing.” Alan motioned him through the doorway. When Jean-Paul gave no sign of moving, he shrugged. “Sometimes you and Denny could be the same person.”
She answered the door in jeans and a tank top, then turned and walked away, bare feet slapping against the linoleum. Alan stood in the hallway admiring her ankles.
“Were you going to invite me in?” he ventured.
She tossed a smile over her shoulder. “I never had to before.”
By the time Alan stepped inside, Jean-Paul had already toppled a vase, righted it without spilling so much as a drop of water, and moved on to scrutinizing the décor.
“So. Ex-girlfriend of yours?” His eyes flickered from walls painted a hue best described as “seasick” to the end of the hall.
“Always a safe bet,” said Alan, “but no.”
“Alaaaaaaan. Okay. Current girlfriend?”
“Hardly.”
“Lover.”
“Your accent does magnificent things to that word.”
“If you don’t tell me, when she comes back I’m gonna ask her point blank how many times Alan Shore’s fucked her.”
Alan smiled. “Be sure to specify physically. Assuming that is what you-“
She strode into the room, pressed a large, flimsy envelope to his chest. “Thank you, Cindy,” he said softly, tugging at the envelope until her hand rested against the dark wool of his suit. “I can’t tell you how invaluable-“
“No.” She gave a pinched smile-he’d always been under the impression she rationed them, allowed herself only so many per day. “You can’t.” Hand still in place, she looked him up and down, fondness, or a distant cousin thereof, easing the lines of her face. “Alan. It’s been a long time. You look-“
“I’ve put on weight.”
Her hand slid to his tie; she twisted it in her fingers and pulled, leaving him no choice but to take a faltering step forward. “It’s kinda cute,” she said, a rustle of suppressed laughter in her voice. “What happened? You find a nice girl to settle down with?”
“Now”-Alan inched closer, set a hand at her waist, ran his thumb over the ridge of her hip-“whatever would I want with a nice girl when there are girls like you to be had?”
With a laugh she relinquished the tie. The intervening years had treated her neither well nor poorly. She had the beauty of a tree denuded of its bark-some essential encumbrance had been stripped away. When she did grow old, Alan was convinced it would happen overnight.
“Charming as ever.” She arched a brow. “Sure you don’t want to show me what else hasn’t changed?”
“You shouldn’t take your work home with you. I hear,” Alan leaned in to confide, “it’s unhealthy.”
“You came here.”
“Not yet I-“
“Alan broke your doorknob,” Jean-Paul said, sounding as if he’d finished politely masking a yawn with his hand.
Alan’s arm dropped to his side. He took a step back. “Downstairs. I put it out of its misery.”
“He’s being modest.” Jean-Paul sidled up to Alan, gracing Cindy with a grin that suggested they were in on the same joke. “Alan overwhelmed it with his manly strength.”
“We should be going,” Alan said.
“But I want to meet your friend,” Cindy protested. It would have been difficult to say which word was more laden with sly insinuation-‘meet’ or ‘friend.’
“Jean-Paul Beaubier.” Jean-Paul somehow refrained from bowing at the waist or kissing any hands. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. How is Alan in bed?”
“We really should be going.” Alan slung an arm around Jean-Paul’s shoulders and guided him to the door. “Before I break anything else.”
Jean-Paul thundered down the stairs like a stampeding herd of buffalo, spinning at the bottom to regard Alan’s less hasty descent with undisguised contempt. “So. What’s in the envelope?”
“Legal documents,” Alan said, voice measured as the thump of his shoes on the steps. “Exceedingly dull, every last one of them. I didn’t think that would be your first question, by the way.”
Jean-Paul shrugged. “She’s a prostitute.” Coming from a mouth that freely issued-and had likely enacted-all manner of vulgarities, the word sounded antique, almost quaint.
“Yes, she very much is.” Reaching the end of the stairs, Alan crossed to the door. He placed his palm flat against it and waited for Jean-Paul to say something.
Jean-Paul said nothing. Alan pushed open the door and stepped outside.
A gust of air whipped past him, stinging his face, sending him lurching sideways like a drunk or a man who hadn’t yet found his sea legs. It happened in the merest fraction of an instant; by the time Alan’s mind had processed Jean-Paul’s burst of speed, in the time it had taken the appropriate synapses to fire, it had become memory.
Jean-Paul hovered two feet above the ground, bangs drooping into his eyes, tie askew. His lips were parted, as though he’d frozen in the act of catching his breath. In one hand, forgotten, he held the envelope. In the other he held a series-lurid, glossy, magnified to dimensions calculated to administer a jolt of dismay to even the most calloused of hearts-of photographs.
“Jean-Paul, come down-“ The bleating, motherly quality of the words struck Alan a moment too late; he was obliged to roll his eyes and finish. “Come down from there.”
“Blackmail.” Jean-Paul tossed his head and beamed. “Alan.”
“It’s nice to know that even at this stage in our relationship I’m still able to surprise you. Now I’ll need those back, and I’ll need you to forget you ever saw them.”
“I’m not that surprised,” Jean-Paul said, frowning appraisingly at the topmost photo. “You’re always going on and on about what a detestable bastard you are. Who’s he?” He flipped the picture over, treating Alan to a black-and-white tangle of limbs and bed sheets.
“None of your business.” Briefly Alan entertained the notion-all the more satisfying for its impossibility-of snatching the sheaf of photographs from Jean-Paul’s faster-than-light fingers. “And you’re holding it upside-down.”
“It is my business.” Jean-Paul’s frown hardened into a scowl. “Maybe you’re gonna have to explain this to me like I’m a fucking idiot, Alan, because I-you asked me to come with. I know you like to pretend I’m some innocent kid, but…chrisse. They tried to machine-gun me in my boss’ kitchen. I was old enough for that.”
Alan shrugged. His suit felt heavy on his shoulders, his tie snug around his neck. He’d spent his life tethered to the ground and in front of him was a boy bobbing with agitation in midair. “I made a mistake.”’
“You didn’t.” Jean-Paul alighted on the concrete with the ease of a cat. “Yeah, okay, I’m not a lawyer. But think of”-he flashed a smile at once giddy and fierce-“think of everything I can do.”
“I have,” Alan said curtly, starting toward the car. In moments of weakness (they were frequent), he’d indulged in thoughts of security cameras-no, check that, weapons-dodged or dismantled; of men with faces the color of day-old porridge jumping out of their drab suits when Jean-Paul descended from the sky like the condemning finger of God; of stacks of evidence reviewed in mere minutes; of the ease with which an alibi might be constructed when one could outrun the sound of one’s own voice. “There are better uses for your talents.”
“Better uses than protecting the people I care about?”
“You don’t number yourself among those you care about?” He pulled open the gate and followed Jean-Paul through. It closed with a satisfying clatter. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question.”
“Uhm. I-well, duh, Alan.” Jean-Paul drew his mouth into a strained approximation of a smirk. “I’m awesome. I need to be preserved as an example of sex appeal incar-wait.” His eyes narrowed. “What about you?”
Alan raised his eyebrows. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone capable of describing me as ‘sex appeal incarnate’ while maintaining a straight face.”
“Ha ha,” Jean-Paul said, maintaining a straight face. “You know you’ll be in more danger than me. So. Why are you allowed to put yourself at risk when I’m not?”
“Because that’s what a lawyer does-shields his client from liability.”
The car-now draped in the afternoon’s lengthening shadows-sat imperturbably where they’d left it, like a faithful if not particularly bright pet. Alan paced a wide arc around the vehicle, scrutinizing it for gashes in the paint, the telltale slump of a slashed tire.
It had gone wholly unmolested. Even the pigeons had refrained from bombarding the windshield with derisive graffiti. Feeling vaguely cheated, Alan slipped his key into the lock and climbed inside.
Jean-Paul settled into the passenger seat, photographs strewn across his lap like a poker hand not worth playing, arms folded over his chest. “I wanna fuck them up,” he said quietly.
Alan turned to look at him. “I’m sorry?”
“If you don’t let me do this”-Jean-Paul closed his eyes, sighed as though sinking into a hot bath-“your way, I’m going to beat the living shit out of anyone I can get my hands on. I’m not trying to guilt you into anything, I swear, I just…” He pulled his arms tight around himself, buried his fingers in the cloth of his suit.
“Yeah,” Alan said. “I understand.” He twisted the key in the ignition. Music growled from the stereo.
Jean-Paul turned it up.
It was a beautiful suit-sand colored, understated, matter of fact in its elegance-and it moved with the grace and fluidity of its wearer, rippling ever so slightly as he raised his arm to snap his fingers in Alan’s ear.
“Alan.” In either exasperation or mock horror, Jean-Paul bugged out his eyes. “Alan. Look. At. The. Road.”
Swatting away Jean-Paul’s hand, Alan did as directed. There wasn’t much to see-the street was riddled with cracks and lined with washed-out billboards depicting washed-up celebrities. Hard to believe fifteen minutes’ judicious application of his foot to the gas pedal could return them to Crane, Poole & Schmidt’s gleaming windows and sleek furnishings.
“You were checking me out.”
“The suit.” Alan’s eyes strayed from the asphalt; his right hand abandoned the wheel to swerve through the air, tracing the contours of the garment. “I was admiring-“
The car thumped into a pothole.
“I don’t mind,” Jean-Paul said sweetly, leaning forward to fiddle with the radio dial. Country, hip hop, and rapid-fire Spanish burst from the speakers in quick succession. “I’m used to it.”
The languid, breathy notes of a tenor sax-Alan belatedly recognized Pink Floyd-threaded their way through the stereo system. Jean-Paul slumped back in his seat, eyes bright, mouth twitched into a smile too unselfconscious to be termed a smirk.
“I was wondering, if you must know,” Alan said, “how many weeks at Kelly’s office it cost you. My guess was three.”
“Are we there yet?” Jean-Paul propped hundred-dollar loafers on the dash. Haughtily he tossed his head-every inch, in that moment, the son of a wealthy ambassador. “You drive like an old man.”
They left the Mercedes, its pristine windows begging for the touch of a crowbar, snuggled up to the curb outside a boarded-up supermarket. This was the sort of neighborhood that would go unchanged, impervious to revitalization efforts, indifferent to beautification initiatives, until the day bulldozers flattened the sagging porches and steam shovels bit into the pavement.
“You haven’t told me what we’re doing here,” Jean-Paul said as they halted before a wrought-iron gate.
“You’re right.” Alan brushed his fingers over rusting hinges, peering intently as though in search of some fatal design flaw. Then he placed a hand on one of the thin iron poles and wrenched the gate open, smiling at the resultant shriek of long-disused metal, the satisfaction of a feat of physical strength successfully performed, or in anticipation of Jean-Paul’s reaction to his next remark. “I haven’t.”
Behind the gate, adorned with skid marks and smeared with foul-smelling testaments to the permeability of the below-average trash bag, was a narrow stretch of concrete. Jean-Paul stepped briskly through, glanced left, glanced right, and, curiosity extinguished, began rummaging for a cigarette. “An alley? Kinky, Alan.” His smirk and the match flared as one. “Okay. Shove me up against the wall and have your way with me, but if you think I’m getting on my knees in this suit, cher-“
“A man after my own heart,” Alan said blandly, clanging the gate shut and smoothing his tie.
“M. Shore, I’m serious.”
“And well you should be. A fine suit is a serious matter.”
“Serious about knowing what’s going on.” Jean-Paul smoked impatiently, as though eager to reduce each cigarette to a butt, a husk to be discarded or ground out. “I hired you. I therefore tell you-“
“Two things to bear in mind about the great hulking beast we Americans affectionately refer to as our legal system: one”-nearing the end of the alley, now, Alan veered left into a weathered doorway-“it does things in its own time. Every trial, every suit, every imaginable legal proceeding involves a tremendous amount of heel-dragging.”
As he spoke, Alan jiggled the doorknob. Held in place by a single loose screw, it seemed as likely to clatter to the ground at his feet as to open the door. “Sometimes-frequently, in fact-the very object of these proceedings is to cause delays. Tie your competitor up in litigation and you buy yourself (at no small expense, I’ll grant you) a few years to duplicate or surpass that groundbreaking new product. Patience is-“
Something gave; all at once, like a tooth wrenched free of a confining gum, the knob tumbled from the door. Alan stood blinking at the lump of metal clutched in his hand.
The screw tinkled to the ground.
“Patience is essential,” he concluded, with no appreciable shift in tone.
Jean-Paul snorted and reached for another cigarette.
Knobless doors could be opened, of course-Alan poked a finger into the riddle of metal to which the knob had so stubbornly clung and, with a bit of experimentation and a squashed pinkie, succeeded in teasing back the bolt.
“I hope you don’t expect me to be impressed.”
Alan arched an eyebrow. “Sorry, should I perhaps have kicked it in?”
“I probably could have,” Jean-Paul said airily. “I also could have flown to an open window, or up on the roof, or-“
“Or, with that unspeakably sexy accent of yours, enticed somebody to open their door.”
“Alan.” With a lazy jerk of his shoulders, Jean-Paul shoved off from the wall. He flicked his cigarette away, smirked, anger forgotten in a flush of self-satisfaction. “My accent’s so sexy I could’ve enticed the door.”
Alan shook his head and locked the smile that threatened behind pursed lips. “Sometimes,” he murmured.
“Sometimes what?” Jean-Paul said, voice suddenly sharp, words bristling like the hackles of a cat.
“Nothing.” Alan motioned him through the doorway. When Jean-Paul gave no sign of moving, he shrugged. “Sometimes you and Denny could be the same person.”
She answered the door in jeans and a tank top, then turned and walked away, bare feet slapping against the linoleum. Alan stood in the hallway admiring her ankles.
“Were you going to invite me in?” he ventured.
She tossed a smile over her shoulder. “I never had to before.”
By the time Alan stepped inside, Jean-Paul had already toppled a vase, righted it without spilling so much as a drop of water, and moved on to scrutinizing the décor.
“So. Ex-girlfriend of yours?” His eyes flickered from walls painted a hue best described as “seasick” to the end of the hall.
“Always a safe bet,” said Alan, “but no.”
“Alaaaaaaan. Okay. Current girlfriend?”
“Hardly.”
“Lover.”
“Your accent does magnificent things to that word.”
“If you don’t tell me, when she comes back I’m gonna ask her point blank how many times Alan Shore’s fucked her.”
Alan smiled. “Be sure to specify physically. Assuming that is what you-“
She strode into the room, pressed a large, flimsy envelope to his chest. “Thank you, Cindy,” he said softly, tugging at the envelope until her hand rested against the dark wool of his suit. “I can’t tell you how invaluable-“
“No.” She gave a pinched smile-he’d always been under the impression she rationed them, allowed herself only so many per day. “You can’t.” Hand still in place, she looked him up and down, fondness, or a distant cousin thereof, easing the lines of her face. “Alan. It’s been a long time. You look-“
“I’ve put on weight.”
Her hand slid to his tie; she twisted it in her fingers and pulled, leaving him no choice but to take a faltering step forward. “It’s kinda cute,” she said, a rustle of suppressed laughter in her voice. “What happened? You find a nice girl to settle down with?”
“Now”-Alan inched closer, set a hand at her waist, ran his thumb over the ridge of her hip-“whatever would I want with a nice girl when there are girls like you to be had?”
With a laugh she relinquished the tie. The intervening years had treated her neither well nor poorly. She had the beauty of a tree denuded of its bark-some essential encumbrance had been stripped away. When she did grow old, Alan was convinced it would happen overnight.
“Charming as ever.” She arched a brow. “Sure you don’t want to show me what else hasn’t changed?”
“You shouldn’t take your work home with you. I hear,” Alan leaned in to confide, “it’s unhealthy.”
“You came here.”
“Not yet I-“
“Alan broke your doorknob,” Jean-Paul said, sounding as if he’d finished politely masking a yawn with his hand.
Alan’s arm dropped to his side. He took a step back. “Downstairs. I put it out of its misery.”
“He’s being modest.” Jean-Paul sidled up to Alan, gracing Cindy with a grin that suggested they were in on the same joke. “Alan overwhelmed it with his manly strength.”
“We should be going,” Alan said.
“But I want to meet your friend,” Cindy protested. It would have been difficult to say which word was more laden with sly insinuation-‘meet’ or ‘friend.’
“Jean-Paul Beaubier.” Jean-Paul somehow refrained from bowing at the waist or kissing any hands. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. How is Alan in bed?”
“We really should be going.” Alan slung an arm around Jean-Paul’s shoulders and guided him to the door. “Before I break anything else.”
Jean-Paul thundered down the stairs like a stampeding herd of buffalo, spinning at the bottom to regard Alan’s less hasty descent with undisguised contempt. “So. What’s in the envelope?”
“Legal documents,” Alan said, voice measured as the thump of his shoes on the steps. “Exceedingly dull, every last one of them. I didn’t think that would be your first question, by the way.”
Jean-Paul shrugged. “She’s a prostitute.” Coming from a mouth that freely issued-and had likely enacted-all manner of vulgarities, the word sounded antique, almost quaint.
“Yes, she very much is.” Reaching the end of the stairs, Alan crossed to the door. He placed his palm flat against it and waited for Jean-Paul to say something.
Jean-Paul said nothing. Alan pushed open the door and stepped outside.
A gust of air whipped past him, stinging his face, sending him lurching sideways like a drunk or a man who hadn’t yet found his sea legs. It happened in the merest fraction of an instant; by the time Alan’s mind had processed Jean-Paul’s burst of speed, in the time it had taken the appropriate synapses to fire, it had become memory.
Jean-Paul hovered two feet above the ground, bangs drooping into his eyes, tie askew. His lips were parted, as though he’d frozen in the act of catching his breath. In one hand, forgotten, he held the envelope. In the other he held a series-lurid, glossy, magnified to dimensions calculated to administer a jolt of dismay to even the most calloused of hearts-of photographs.
“Jean-Paul, come down-“ The bleating, motherly quality of the words struck Alan a moment too late; he was obliged to roll his eyes and finish. “Come down from there.”
“Blackmail.” Jean-Paul tossed his head and beamed. “Alan.”
“It’s nice to know that even at this stage in our relationship I’m still able to surprise you. Now I’ll need those back, and I’ll need you to forget you ever saw them.”
“I’m not that surprised,” Jean-Paul said, frowning appraisingly at the topmost photo. “You’re always going on and on about what a detestable bastard you are. Who’s he?” He flipped the picture over, treating Alan to a black-and-white tangle of limbs and bed sheets.
“None of your business.” Briefly Alan entertained the notion-all the more satisfying for its impossibility-of snatching the sheaf of photographs from Jean-Paul’s faster-than-light fingers. “And you’re holding it upside-down.”
“It is my business.” Jean-Paul’s frown hardened into a scowl. “Maybe you’re gonna have to explain this to me like I’m a fucking idiot, Alan, because I-you asked me to come with. I know you like to pretend I’m some innocent kid, but…chrisse. They tried to machine-gun me in my boss’ kitchen. I was old enough for that.”
Alan shrugged. His suit felt heavy on his shoulders, his tie snug around his neck. He’d spent his life tethered to the ground and in front of him was a boy bobbing with agitation in midair. “I made a mistake.”’
“You didn’t.” Jean-Paul alighted on the concrete with the ease of a cat. “Yeah, okay, I’m not a lawyer. But think of”-he flashed a smile at once giddy and fierce-“think of everything I can do.”
“I have,” Alan said curtly, starting toward the car. In moments of weakness (they were frequent), he’d indulged in thoughts of security cameras-no, check that, weapons-dodged or dismantled; of men with faces the color of day-old porridge jumping out of their drab suits when Jean-Paul descended from the sky like the condemning finger of God; of stacks of evidence reviewed in mere minutes; of the ease with which an alibi might be constructed when one could outrun the sound of one’s own voice. “There are better uses for your talents.”
“Better uses than protecting the people I care about?”
“You don’t number yourself among those you care about?” He pulled open the gate and followed Jean-Paul through. It closed with a satisfying clatter. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question.”
“Uhm. I-well, duh, Alan.” Jean-Paul drew his mouth into a strained approximation of a smirk. “I’m awesome. I need to be preserved as an example of sex appeal incar-wait.” His eyes narrowed. “What about you?”
Alan raised his eyebrows. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone capable of describing me as ‘sex appeal incarnate’ while maintaining a straight face.”
“Ha ha,” Jean-Paul said, maintaining a straight face. “You know you’ll be in more danger than me. So. Why are you allowed to put yourself at risk when I’m not?”
“Because that’s what a lawyer does-shields his client from liability.”
The car-now draped in the afternoon’s lengthening shadows-sat imperturbably where they’d left it, like a faithful if not particularly bright pet. Alan paced a wide arc around the vehicle, scrutinizing it for gashes in the paint, the telltale slump of a slashed tire.
It had gone wholly unmolested. Even the pigeons had refrained from bombarding the windshield with derisive graffiti. Feeling vaguely cheated, Alan slipped his key into the lock and climbed inside.
Jean-Paul settled into the passenger seat, photographs strewn across his lap like a poker hand not worth playing, arms folded over his chest. “I wanna fuck them up,” he said quietly.
Alan turned to look at him. “I’m sorry?”
“If you don’t let me do this”-Jean-Paul closed his eyes, sighed as though sinking into a hot bath-“your way, I’m going to beat the living shit out of anyone I can get my hands on. I’m not trying to guilt you into anything, I swear, I just…” He pulled his arms tight around himself, buried his fingers in the cloth of his suit.
“Yeah,” Alan said. “I understand.” He twisted the key in the ignition. Music growled from the stereo.
Jean-Paul turned it up.