Junkyard Hounds vol. II
Rating: M
Warnings: violence, cursing, drug use
Prompt: Orange/White AU, Larry is the (young/brash) detective and Orange is the criminal.
Summary: White slid into the seat, whistling low at that new car smell. New money, and not even a revolver taped under the dash. Orange got the car started with an asthmatic cough of the engine, sliding upright. He drove like he walked, slumped back with an arm thrown out over the wheel, glancing up at the rearview instead of twisting in his seat to check the road.
1
Larry was given an address and a time of day -- Friday ten a.m. -- and if he was surprised that any one of these crooks woke up before noon, he didn't show it. The main attraction, the big job, what would accumulate to hundreds of thousands (if not a solid mil) take; that was the main course and White wasn't allowed to skip the hors d'ouevres. Holdaway had warned him as much, and there was nothing Larry could do to keep his nose clean.
It would be his bad luck if he had to blow the whistle on the operation early to save someone's life during an aperitif, but apparently Mr. Orange favored the covert breaking-and-entering kind of robbery and less so the kind that took place in an alley at knife-point. (That was the value of bagging the Cabots at last -- all the unsolved robberies in that town would be halved if not eradicated entirely.)
It was Orange to escort Larry on the warm-up job because it was Orange who Papa Joe considered a 'great judge of character', having selectively weeded the Cabot ranks of two stone-cold murderers and an undercover cop already. The report to Holdaway read that Orange was like a production company's handler, interviewing the actors and screening all the junk mail. You didn't get to Eddie or Joe without going through Orange. He was at once too busy 'handling' the others on the team but at a drop of a dime he'd square all his attention on White, nose wrinkling in a sneer of a grin.
White noticed it, the force of change. He let the bad attitude roll off him like waves beating at a sea cliff, shutting down to a silence with a raised eyebrow. He knew it was a ruse but didn't know if Larry the White Russian should be sharp enough to know it, too. Orange was an awful lot like Larry sometimes -- like he couldn't help but crack a joke and make friendly and it was more fun than Larry should have had to make him slip up.
That was in a group, though, when pretenses had to be maintained. This job was going to be one-on-one, and Larry need only survive the dissection of those glassy green eyes for a little longer than an afternoon. How, for instance, had he known about the undercover detective Holdaway's people had sent the summer before? Larry had read the file, and either Detective Ferchetti had left something crucial out of his reports or the Cabots' attache really was that good.
Larry shoved all that anxiety to the bottom of his thoughts before he'd left his apartment, but the bus ride to the Valley had given him plenty of time to ruminate and work himself up again. He used that energy instead of trying to suppress it, harnessed the nervousness a casual drug dealer might feel shifting areas of expertise as he was. Orange's house was, much to Larry's surprise, in a ritzy fukken neighborhood.
It only took the few blocks from bus stop to the address in his pocket for White to realize this wasn't Orange's house. It was the target. It was the assignment. Orange was already waiting for him inside; the front door gave way to reveal an open living room with its breezeway doors thrown wide. Orange was perched on the back of the bright red leather couch, petting a hulking rottweiler with its broad head in his lap (drooling all over the hole at his knee, staining the denim dark). Orange greeted White with a bored smile.
"Well, you're not late."
"Jesus fucking christ, I thought we were meeting at your place first."
Orange shrugged under the bulk of a tan wool trench-coat he'd probably already liberated from the closets (judging by its ill fit). "You've obviously been away a long fucking time, if you're gonna forget what streets belong to which neighborhoods."
"I was just a kid when I left L.A.!"
Orange winced, calming the dog at his knee. "Keep it down, will ya? The neighbors know this couple is away to Mexico for the month and I don't want the dog sitter coming over early 'cos she heard your fine dulcetto." He easily and nimbly left the couch, the dog's bulk spilling after him with an excited huff. Larry edged back to the door.
"You afraid of dogs, new guy?"
"Ask me that question again after you've had yourself a rabies shot. It goes in the stomach, up to ten fucking needles."
Orange draws up, glancing down uncertainly at the animal as it drowsily inspects the warm breeze drifting through the room. "It ain't rabid." He pats its heavy ribs as if to reassure it. "But it can smell your fear. People aren't so very different than animals, you know. Even if you can school your expression and your words to model confidence, there's no hiding the stink of fear."
"Thanks for the advice, Doctor Doolittle. Can we get going on this job before the dogsitter pokes her dumb head in?"
Orange scratches his cheek in thought, tilting his chin from side to side. "Okay, sure. So what are you gonna go for first?"
"The doorknob," White gruffs impatiently. "To wipe my prints." He examples this, pulling a dark handkerchief from his trouser pocket.
"Okay. Then what." Orange has shrugged deeper into his coat and was idly playing footsie with the rottweiler, careful not to let the teeth scrape up his shoes too bad.
"You cold or somethin'?"
"Just withdrawals. I'll be sweating like a motherfucker in an hour or so."
White nods, sage about all things related to illicit substance. "You on that Program?" He's inspecting the house, peeking into corridors and fingering windowsills for the deactivated alarm wires.
"Methadone." It's like a curse word, and both men wince. Orange has his hands balled into the coat's pockets. "What are you gonna go for first, c'mon, I'm curious over here." He bounces in place, impatient.
Instead of answering, "You get a haircut?"
Orange rolls his eyes, fixing a cigarette to his mouth without lighting it. "Gotta look professional for the heist. Not gonna have any masks, so might as well leave behind a pretty security tape."
"Really?" Larry bends to the fireplace, running his hands under the brick sill for hidden valuables. He finds a spare set of keys but not much else. "No masks, huh. What are we robbing, a bank?"
"Jewelry store." Orange paces to the breezeway and fidgets with the cigarette he's not allowed to light. The dog wanders over to inspect White's progress, pulling anxiety sharp to the forefront.
White just knows the damn thing is going to snap into his face without warning, and he trails around to the kitchen just to escape it. There's nothing valuable he could see making away with; the decorations were cheap crystal and the appliances couldn't be taken on a bus to a pawn shop in broad daylight. He disappears to the bedroom and rifles carefully for jewelry or heirlooms. Turns the mattress over and remakes the bed.
By the time he's working on the bookshelves, Orange has moseyed around to poke questions through the air. "So what are you looking for?"
"Money tucked away for a rainy day. Hidden things. I think the keys in the fireplace go to a boat, or maybe a vacation home, or maybe this home. Unless there's a car in the garage."
Orange nods. "We're driving it out of here; keys would be a big help. Got anything else?"
"Unless we're going to pack the appliances into the trunk of that car, I'd say this go is a bust."
Orange is scratching his chin in thought again, trailing his thumbnail up and down the curve of his jaw. "That's a thought. Too many serial numbers to file away, though. So what made you toss the bed?"
White's insides nearly freeze. Maybe that's where Ferchetti had messed up, maybe he'd been too familiar with the ways of the criminal mind, too easily slipping into the detective's habit of covering every inch. "Well I figure," The lie comes easy, as much a relief as the breeze through the curtains. "Nice big house, nice neighborhood, cheap ass flea market shit on the walls? Kujo over here wearing a rusty ass chain insteada something studded with rhinestones? New money. Maybe even drug money. Anything of value, it's gonna be hidden."
But then again, he's being too smart. There's a pause between Orange and White and, for a second, Larry actually doubts himself. He can't be too incompetent, or else they won't be able to rely on him for the big heist. He can't be too good, either, or they'll suspect something's up. If Larry's weakness wasn't compassion, it'd be ego. Holdaway was right; Larry needed to stop showing off. He shrugs like he couldn't give a fuck. "Unless it's just that you already picked the place clean."
Orange grins, "I'm glad you'd think so, but nah. I suppose the car's the only thing we're going to net this time around, unless you're in the market for a new pet." He claps White's shoulder and earns a playful shove, the dog letting out a few nervous half-yelps at the semi-violence. "Lookit you! Such a good nanny," Orange coos, peeling the baggy of treats from his pocket before upending them on the carpet.
They leave the house unlocked and breezy and maybe even a little cleaner than they found it. The keys weren't a match, though, so Orange had to hot-wire their getaway mobile while White pried the garage door open. White approached the passenger side dusting his hands, knocking against the window. Orange struggled up into view, clearly annoyed, and rolled his eyes before punching at the door lock.
White slid into the seat, whistling low at that new car smell. New money, and not even a revolver taped under the dash. Orange got the car started with an asthmatic cough of the engine, sliding upright. He drove like he walked, slumped in the chair with an arm thrown out over the wheel, glancing up at the rearview instead of twisting in his seat to check the road.
White figured there was a need for conversation between them, but he wasn't about to babble on about bullshit. Never did like small talk, unless he was flirting with someone, and hey wasn't that a great idea. He chuckled out at the passing road, arm hanging out of the open widow.
"What's funny?"
"Dangerous ideas; sometimes I get 'em in my head and it's a trip just to consider."
"Oh yeah? Thinking about what you would have called that dog, if you'd taken her home?"
"Something dainty and misleading, like Tutu."
Orange cracks a wide grin and White feels like he can relax. "You familiar with Donny's Garage?"
"Nope."
"Chop shop. We might get a little shit for the transaction, but I wanna make sure the price is fair. New cars, man they're hardest to ply off 'cos the insurance companies get a right bug up their collective asses. Donny don't usually do new cars." Orange trails off suggestively. "I wanna see you convince him otherwise."
"What, like a salesman?" White's stomach had gone cold. He might end up hurting somebody after all.
"No, like a badass motherfucker. Like Baretta."
White paused. Fished his memory for any mistakes he might have made up to that point. "You mean like Mr. Nicholas, right? Baretta was the cop of that show."
Orange laughed. "I'm just glad you got that reference, man. You watch a lot of T.V.? Most stoners do, I find."
"Not a stoner," White wheedles, "But yeah I had a lot of free time doing what I did."
"You're not doing it anymore, huh?" Orange had shrugged out of his coat, pallid forehead shined in sweat.
"Even if I were, I never knew any rich white ladies and I didn't like to go skiing on fresh snow." He sounds petulant, and strains not to be so uppity. Even Mr. White Russian had standards, though.
"What, you a naturalist? Nothin' but pot and peyote?"
White chews over that image, nodding from side to side. "Yeah, I guess I was. I'd got into coke one winter but that's a messy fucking scene. Columbians, eesh." He could feel the baseball bat in his chapped hands, the carpetbag at his ankle, the ice seeping up the hem of his fitted trousers. That scene crept its way into his voice and he felt fuller in that car. Realer.
Orange was nodding, accepting, eyes glued to the road. "Hit the radio, will you?"
There was a certain unevolved element White had observed amongst most criminals. These were the people who had slipped through the cracks of the educational system; what smart ones there were, were almost always sociopaths. It stood to reason, then, that if you were on the wrong side of the Law you were either stupid or insane.
Sure, some decent people found themselves in bad situations and couldn't help but grow up to be products of their environment, but this hardly lasted past a certain mile marker of adulthood. Early twenties usually saw the decent ones at a steady job, with a family or enrolled in a correctional program. That was what the legal system was for, to put the mentally and emotionally stable ones back on their feet. As it was, the seasoned crooks were just... stuck in place. The people who steal and hurt just to make gain never grow out of a certain phase of their lives and the signs are very, very obvious.
Sometimes the signs are absurd and surreal, like the hardest motherfucker ever to prowl the streets might still sleep with a teddy bear, or that guy who knocked a granny's face in for her purse still buys his mother flowers on her birthday (there was nothing juvenile about being kind to your ma, but the contrast was still ridiculous). Or maybe a seasoned crook like Orange still collected comic books because regular books and magazines couldn't hold his attention -- and there it was, and there it wasn't, because Orange wasn't dumb.
Which meant he might have been psychotic, or he might have been one of those unfortunate products of an impoverished upbringing that saw him clinging on to that survival attitude as long as humanly possible. The plain fact was that criminals never grew up. Maybe they took such delight in their jobs that it seemed like they never could grow up, or at least they never had to, because being miserable with your job was the American stamp of adulthood and if Orange was ever miserable with his job then he could simply get around to doing something else, couldn't he?
So there was that ridiculous scene, Orange slumped in the front seat of the car he'd just stolen flipping through the comic book he'd picked up when White had disappeared to buy cigarettes. He'd probably stolen the comic, too, but White knew better than to ask. There was a dual philosophy circling White's thoughts on the subject; was it that criminals were stuck in the selfish throes of a second childhood, or was that just what unhappy stiffs with miserable jobs told themselves because they only wished they could indulge their Id with such abandon?
Root instinct and juvenile behavior weren't so very far apart, after all. Was it developmental arrest, then, or just a matter of circumstance providing opportunity to wield a state of mind with which every man and woman was born? Larry had a difficult time picturing Orange as anything but a criminal. He knew the ubernerdy manchildren that took over their parents' basements well into their forties and not a one of those guys ever got around to wearing a wedding ring. So you take a nerd, grow him up in a rough neighborhood, and parental neglect makes him enough of a badass to net himself a wife?
"You're thinking too loud," Orange complains, folding the comic into the pocket of his new out-of-season coat. "Steam comin' outta your ears." He bends awkwardly to refit the wiring under the steering wheel and the car jerks to life.
White growls a non-answer, ashing his cigarette out the window. It was all just conjecture anyway, nothing solid to go into any reports. This Donny guy, though, that garage was going to be a place of mighty interest to the boys in blue.
"Relax," Orange's reassurance is a bit startling, as is his acuity. Definitely not one of the dumb ones. "Donny's not a bad guy, he just thinks he's cleverer than he really is. You know the type?"
White's laugh hardly leaves his throat. "The kind that say 'commode' when 'restroom' would do?"
Orange's eyebrows leap to his hairline. "Naw, them's just the wordsy kind that maybe watch a few too many crime noire flicks. I mean the real jokers, the ones that deal in finance. Like numbers being solid somehow makes them wieldable, weaponized."
Diplomatically, "Are Donny's numbers solid?"
"Not hardly half. It's an unstable market, is stolen cars. Supply and demand, what parts go where and get sold to whom." Orange tilts his head from side to side, face as animated as any sincere businessman. "I don't claim to be an expert on the topic but I know we don't deserve to get screwed outta our rightful take. This car is brand fucking new which means the parts are brand fucking new which means Donny and his boys are going to be able to sell off every single bit of it. If he's gonna wanna pay us like this is just some heap we rolled in from the junkyard --"
"I get it," White is nodding. "So how much does a brand new car cost, in parts?"
"Same as it costs once it's put together and shown off on a Lot, maybe a little less because I mean," Orange pauses to take the left turn onto the highway. "I mean, you know, either way we're netting a profit. And we don't wanna bankrupt our grift, that's just bad manners."
"All right," White contemplates the cherry of his cigarette. "So how much does a Lot vehicle go for, then?"
Orange glances sharply from the road to White and back again twice. "What, you don't know?"
"I'm from --" he cuts himself off, illustrating compliance to Papa Joe's demands about personal information (though he'd have to start leaking tidbits soon if he wanted the kind of rapport that earned Orange's trust). "-- a big city, cowpoke. We have these things a lot like trains, only they run underground."
Orange laughs, suspicion diffused. "Okay, fuck you then. Useless." It's one of those good-natured insults, one that almost has Larry reaching over and punching the guy in the arm. He catches himself, fist raised between them, lets his hand fall back to the padded armrest. Orange clears his throat as if to announce an Emmy winner. "A wood-paneled Cadillac of this make and model goes for around ten smacking big ones... or a little more."
White nods. Orange isn't going to tell him the asking price, or how to haggle with Donny. That's for White to figure out, and he understands the thinking-on-your-feet aspect of this job. It's not about being an amateur at grift and barter; it's about being a professional under an unfamiliar circumstance. White could respect that, find enthusiasm for it even.
They walk away from Donny's garage with seven thousand in cold cash, and Orange calls White a pussy and Donny a cheapskate but he does so with his arm around White's neck and his knuckles in his hair and he only relents once the bus shows up and White chases him down the seat aisle like he's the kid who just stole his comic book. They remember they are adults once they reach the back of the bus and compose themselves to a seat, Orange ever-vigilant and White with an elbow propped on the narrow sill of the window, hand covering his grin.
2
Seven thou in take-away was cause for celebration. After the Cabot's cut, Orange had five grand to split between them; and he insisted, because how else was White going to pay his rent and eat? Cars were usually a lot harder to get away with in that either their alarms were set or their owners would notice the theft right away. They'd lucked out finding one left in a garage by happenstance of vacation, though White never doubted Orange having done his homework weeks beforehand.
Two and a half K to go into the evidence vault until the end of the trial, and then the city would absorb it and spread it out like rain. A penny to everyone.
That didn't stop White from celebrating with the rest of the boys, hardly denting the allowance the L.A. precinct had siphoned for 'illicit transactions'. The paperwork on undercover expenditures was a nightmare. Did hookers and blow go under utility and grocery? Was booze a miscellaneous or an extraneous? None of it was Larry's money.
If it were Larry's money, he'd forego the blow and buy Orange a nice Philly style steak, nothing like the dry anemic slabs ground up for chilli meat hereabouts. It was a heartbeat later that White realized wanting to take the guy out for steak was a little too... something. Stupid. Gay. A little too much like a waste of time. He had to work on the other suspects, maybe catch what info slipped out between the cursing and the cat-calling.
Nothing doing. These joeys were professional bullshitters and breeze-shooters, pool sharkers and sweet-talkers. The dive was crowded -- and it was a dive, windowless and half a floor underground, hot and damp and full to pressing from brick wall to brick wall. Men and women lost their shirts on the dance floor, a bare tit disappeared behind a large ringed hand, and by the time the knife-fight broke out Orange had already seized Eddie's elbow and steered him toward the back exit.
The rest of the boys followed piecemeal, Blonde enigmatic and unaffected at Eddie's side while Pink and Brown hassled Blue into letting his 'date' get back to serving the drinks so they could get the fuck out of there before the cops showed up. White lent a shoulder to keeping Pink away from the curb; Pink had hit the juice pretty hard claiming it made him ace at pool, shooting in 'an altered state of consciousness with ninja-like precision'. Or some shit.
Pink was rambling fairly vehemently about the power of the subconscious and how shooting (pool, or) a rifle is a lot like playing the piano and that it's all about breathing and making your body a tripod. On and on, until it came down to what Larry wanted to hear, to some fatal bragging point, and that was Mr. Pink's Hawkeye medal. Scrawny rat fuck had been in the military, though it was no large guess to see why he'd dropped out.
Cadets, drop-outs, retirees, Pink was too young to be a veteran but Larry would bet balls to bullseye that he had a father who was. It would still be a long search, but Larry now had a face and a general time frame and the government was anything if not exact in its record keeping. Larry damn near wished he wasn't in blackout; he'd have loved to see Holdaway's face, deliver the news himself. He'd type the report up tonight, even, alcohol burning through his veins like potent lamp oil.
The group managed to herd Pink into a cab and stood outside it while the cabby peeked nervously at the street, arguing who (if anyone) should maybe go with Mr. Pink and make sure he didn't pass out in any compromisable places. White feigned reluctance but volunteered, keen on getting an address to feed to the file search. He climbed in, bracing Pink upright against the far door.
White slapped at Pink's hollow face to rouse him, shaking the man by his lapels to get the address out of him. This gained (a Hills hotel, double damn he was rich and from out-of-town), White repeated the destination but still the cab did not pull forward. He was still quite drunk, so it took asking after the hold-up twice before the cabby could understand him, but by then Orange had thrown a wad of cash through the driver's window and shoved in to the remaining space of the back seat.
They were all too drunk to care at the proximity, having just come from a dive where strangers had their elbows in intimate places. Squashing up next to a guy you even sorta had to consider a friend was no big deal compared to that, though Pink fidgeted and quoted a 'personal neuroses with enclosed spaces'. White had to agree that the L.A. heat, even diffused by nightfall, made the experience less pleasant.
He'd been half-assing to reassure Mr. Pink, and the cab had finally pulled out with a lurch, and on taking inventory of his surroundings he found Orange sitting forward with an arm against the plexiglass, but more importantly (and that his thoughts ran like this, without punctuation, mouth running on auto-pilot to keep Pink engaged in conversation so as to keep him awake), but, more importantly, on meeting Orange's expression and expecting to find the usual mocking sneer or the more popular calm disinterest,
AT THAT POINT, in that cab, pressed in the middle seat between Pink's gangly sprawl (and, on second thought, avoiding that and finding himself more on Orange's half of the car and maybe that was--) laughing because jesus h. christ Pink was soaked and Orange's grin crooked up half his face like maybe he didn't want it to but couldn't stop it really, hell White was a funny guy when he was annoyed, and
And did you see that guy with the knife? What the hell, way to ruin an evening, all fun and games until somebody loses a spleen, and Orange really does laugh at that and what, did Orange think White was going to rob Pink, what was with the escort?
Did White say that out loud? He didn't mean to, really, because what he'd really wanted to ask was, was it hot in California, or was it just Orange. That question went unasked, for obvious reasons (chief not White's personal safety but in fact how cheesy a line it was), but it was there again, the thing that had derailed Larry's thoughts in the first place. Orange was braced against the plexiglass, half his attention to the road.
When that attention shifted, Christ, White could swear he felt himself being bottomed out like a canoe struck by lighting. Burning and drowning at the same time. Elbows in intimate places, body language. Check your damn body language, White. Arm thrown out over the back of Orange's half of the seat.
White nearly removes his arm, realizing it had been there all along and maybe why Orange hadn't sat back properly and maybe buckled his fucking belt (none of them had or would), but
The cab takes a sharp turn and the Hills are a good forty minutes away and Orange settles back in his seat with boneless inebriation and his hair is damp against White's forearm until
There's a turn and White shifts to get comfortable in the silence left behind in the wake of Pink's blackout. Orange's head fits in the crook of his shoulder as if it's not too hot at all, but maybe
The lights of the underpass paint Orange's face in stark claps of industrial yellow neon and he squints, blinking up from the doze before hiding his eyes against Larry's neck. Against White's neck. Against the neck of some midwest gangster he doesn't know from Tom Mick or Harry, and Micky doesn't once drop character because sometimes crooks weren't stupid or crazy but they could be queer if they were neither or both of these, or maybe they had bad tempers or just bad luck and it found them six months in county and
The cabby pulled to the back of the hotel and White chuckles encouragement as he shakes Orange and Pink awake. The night was a lot cooler by the time they got Pink propped up between them (and that was why Orange had gone, at the behest of Nice Guy that Pink not come down with something as disastrous as a concussion when White inevitably dropped his talkative ass down a flight of stairs).
There weren't any stairs in the hotel, a ranch-style joint set in the scenic rock like a mudslide disaster waiting to happen (where White was from, it rained, okay? Orange found this hilarious). Hotel keys fished out of Pink's pocket (a game of rock-paper-scissors determining who would brave that venture), Orange snapping an impatient question as White made sure Pink was laid out on his bed without the danger of drowning in his own puke.
White didn't understand the sudden change in attitude until he saw the credit card, and even in the cold AC of the carpeted hallway he hardly registered what the point was of breaking into an unoccupied hotel room, but
Orange had a grip on the hem of White's Hawaiian shirt, and White followed this tug because he was drunk and victorious and couldn't take his eyes off Orange's sharp grin from day one and Orange was an observant fuck and if he never found Larry out for a cop he sure as hell found him out for something else, and hell if
Larry knew it was a bad idea even before the chemical tang of cocaine bloomed from Orange's mouth to his, bitter and distinct. He startled from the kiss, the light from the hallway closed out as his back hit the door. Too drunk. Too stupid. Too damn dark in there.
"Hey," Orange soothed, the heavy fold of a leather jacket hitting the floor. "Relax man, I'm not gonna jump you." White got a little warning this time, Orange's bony hands searching out his shoulders, the jumping pulse in his neck, then combing through his hair. Another one of those absurd contrasts; for a guy who made a career out of taking what he wanted from others, Orange was remarkably giving. He kissed like they had just got back from Prom, like White's mouth was the most fascinating thing in the known world.
White had anchored his grip at Orange's sides, cementing the image of slow dancing in a highschool gym. Taffeta on the basketball hoops and barbiturates in the punch.
Orange slid and arm around White's neck to pull himself closer, shoulders to knees keeping out the dark chill settled raw on damp skin. "What," he complains when White braces their bodies apart. "What, what," he mouths against White's ear like he knows it would drive him crazy, as sure as if he'd read it on a file. "I'm clean, you asshole -- certificate of health in my wallet. Right next to the condoms."
"Good to know," White hadn't trusted his voice to work, especially at the next reluctant admission, "So you're clean, but you're also fucked up."
"Jury's out on that." Orange mused, though he had given White some space. Hotel curtains were a heavy barricade against outside light and noise, and either Orange didn't want to risk a lamp or simply didn't have the patience to go hunting for one. Maybe it was dark for a good reason.
Maybe Larry didn't want to go hunting out a lamp either. "I mean you're high. You didn't even ask me if I was clean."
Orange's hands do noise to the door on both sides of White's head, slapping the wood before pushing himself away. "So tell me you're clean, then."
Larry can think a little clearer without the smell of sweat and leather crawling down his throat. "You're married."
Orange scoffs. "I'm not asking you to wear my class ring, Suzie Q, I just wanna suck your cock."
White is surprised that they'd been thinking along the same lines; that this encounter was a little too... something. Too new. Too intimate. The kind of rendezvous teenagers would have, because they knew it wouldn't last past the summer but they were drunk and self-centered and delusional on hormones. "I'm flattered."
"Yeah. You're somethin'."
"I'm also shitfaced. Nothin' doin', friend, sorry."
"You're sober enough."
White has crossed his arms, leaned his head against the door. Kept trying to swallow back the aftertaste of the crack rock Orange had probably been dissolving under his lip all night, wondering if it was enough to show up on a blood test. Wondering if it was enough to get him addicted. "Maybe. But you're still married."
"For the tax returns."
"I got a code. I got standards."
"'Course you do." Orange sounds less manic, at least, but the defeat echoes between them. The repeated spark of a butane lighter, a small weak pocket of light where Orange wears his hair ruffled and boyish, disappearing as the cigarette is breathed to life. Footfall in the dark, the healthy noiselessness of a new mattress giving way under a body.
White steps forward because he can't just leave it god damn well enough alone. He's unsurprised when he feels the tug of his beltloop, knees hitting the edge of the bed.
"You nightblind?"
White means to laugh, he just doesn't get around to it. "No, but your pupils are probably blown so wide I bet it's given you super vision."
"Faster than a speeding bullet..." Orange mumbles, manages to coax White to take a sit. His voice lowers dramatically. "Able to leap to erroneous conclusions in a single bound."
"Listen to the Harvard grad over here. Erroneous."
"I got that word from Ghostbusters."
White's eyes are glued to the burning cherry of Orange's cigarette. "Dan Aykroyd is a trip."
Orange makes an agreement in the back of his throat. "And Billy-what's-his'face."
"Crystal? He ain't in that film."
"Sure he is, he plays Peter."
White's silent laugh shakes the bed, Orange's heat soaking his hip. "You mean -- aw fuck, what's his name..."
"Yeah you're right though, it ain't Billy Crystal."
"Not even close. Budge over, I gotta let the room stop spinning."
Orange makes space, but not much. They fit together like they had at the door, like they did in the cab, inebriated and lazy, and Larry waxes philosophical. "Chinese saying goes something like, a hundred years, shit, what was it -- a hundred years in a boat --"
"It takes a hundred years for two people to share the same boat, a thousand years for them to share the same pillow. Fortune cookie."
"Bill Murray."
"Bill Murray ain't chi-- oh, that's the guy."
"Yeah, Peter Spengler."
"No, wait, no," Orange twists in place, settling back so he can rest his head in the crook of White's shoulder. "You got the characters confused. Spengler's the geeky one."
"Oh yeah, the Jew. There was a Jew and a black guy and Peter was the goofy stud who wanted to get with Sigourney Weaver. Who was the other nerd?"
"Rick Moranis?"
"Naw, naw, there was four of 'em, four Ghostbusters."
"That's plenty true, but people don't usually credit Ernie Hudson 'cos Winston was a late arrival to the team."
White plucks Orange's smoke from his hand and takes a bracing pull. He exhales, wondering if this was building the kind of rapport he needed to be building and not some other, more dangerous set-up. "That's all Greek to me. I just know there were four of 'em and Rick Moranis was the only nerd who actually got to tap himself some demonic ass."
Orange's answer is a smile evident in the huff of his breath, his knuckles tapping out a steady rhythm on White's chest. Orange could almost sleep, if he weren't metabolizing an unstable upper.
White himself felt halfway to passing out, body leaden in the swaying embrace of still-a-little-too-drunk. He probably wouldn't have gotten to his report that night anyway.
Orange's voice is stark. "Lemme jerk you off."
White winces. "Maybe later, when we aren't talking about the Ghostbusters."
Orange's snicker is stifled. "Squeamish over a little ectoplasm?"
"Dan Aykroyd's doofy mug would haunt my fucking nightmares."
Low, deadpan -- "It's the Staypuff marshmallow man."
The resulting scuffle saw them from one side of the bed to the other. A shove here or there, a jab to the ribs, Orange cursing at minimal volume and White biting down on his laughter. The hindsight of sobriety, since the noise would have been equal if not greater had they actually been fucking. Unless Orange was used to this, to keeping it quiet, to doing this shit on the sly.
"Heya, White..."
Larry realizes he'd been caught up in his thoughts and lets his fists loose from Orange's shirt. "Hn?"
"You AC/DC?"
This time White does laugh, a sharp 'ha' that he repeats again for emphasis. "Think maybe you should ask that before you pull a drunk man into a hotel room? Some guys out there, beat you half to death for pulling a stunt like that on the wrong impression."
"Yeah, no, yeah, I mean, you like women?"
"If they're nice enough, yeah." Slightly annoyed, White doesn't bother to ask why Orange had been so confident over whether or not he'd liked men.
"Wanna go pick one up?"
"Jesus Christ, you trying to kill yourself?"
"What, hey, naw," Orange struggles to a sit, the dent of his weight pulling Larry toward the middle of the bed. "Nothing or nobody from the Boulevard. I know a decent place, though, they vet. Just wanna get laid, yanno," A sniff, "Get the base outta my veins."
White tries to shrug back into the warm spot of the coverlet. "So go get laid." There's a tension in the pause like maybe Orange is going to ask him for money, but then --
"Nevermind then, if you ain't interested."
White's laugh is stained by disbelief. "What the fuck does that even matter?" Before he can stop himself, "Why?"
White's eyes have adjusted to the gloom, and he can barely make out the dip of Orange's shoulders as he waffles in indecision. "Long story, or short?"
"Crissakes, asshole. Short."
"I want to see your dick."
"... Okay. So what's the long story?"
"If I'm lucky? Your dick."
"Hardy fucking har."
"That's the idea."
"You wanna get smacked?"
"Okay. Sure. I can be into that."
"Orange. Enough wise-assing. What's the deal here? What's the matter with you?"
"I don't want you on the team."
Larry's pulse thunders through his ears. He sits up. "Did I ever, once, ever fuck up or screw you over or make Papa Joe look bad? Huh? Did I?"
"No, man, and it ain't anything like Quid Pro Quo over here, believe me, it's just. Jesus. You're good. You'd make a good thief. The Cabots, man, they need guys like you. This job," An exhale. "We aren't wearing any masks. That's gotta tell you something. We aren't even using our real names. The only safe way anybody could conceivably move that much ice through the market is anonymously, right?"
"Sure, I follow."
"So, Joe gets his cut once we make the sell. By ourselves. Individually. Preferably a few borders apart from California, and I don't mean state-wise."
"... So?"
"So I don't think you should be on this job. Most of the guys on the team have plans to get far, far away from the states. Do something else with their lives, maybe. But you're good at this line of work and it just feels like you only just got here to just. I dunno. I'm high."
"What happens if the guys don't or can't make the sell, or somehow Joe Cabot doesn't get his share?"
"He knows the buyers. They take the share right at the transaction. We're just the middle-men, the splash page, some faces the media can point the blame at."
"Yeah okay. I get it."
"You're gonna hear all this when Joe calls you around."
"If I get the job."
Orange falls back to the mattress. "Man, don't even listen to me. You're great. You'll do great." His legs find their way over White's lap, feet wagging off the side of the bed. "Wallet's in my jacket, if you want to have a look at that bloodwork sheet."
Larry's chest pinches in tight. He could have a look, and get Orange's name as easy as that. His hesitation is snapped up in the jaws of Orange's tireless observation, though, and the moment passes -- Orange removes himself from Larry, from the bed, fishes around the floor for his jacket. Pulls it on.
Couldn't have read much of anything in the dark, anyway.
3
Larry spent the next three days in his apartment, painting when he wasn't typing, working his hands to keep his mind busy. That had been a close fucking call with Orange, and if he ever sat down and thought it over he'd have to admit that he'd done the wrong thing in letting that name get away from him.
Larry was a good cop, he really was, he knew to which side of the law he pledged his loyalty. Orange was on the other side of that, the wrong side. Maybe prison would be good for him. Straighten him out. Get him off all that dope. Maybe he'd be one of the success stories, getting a cut in his sentence for cooperation.
Any other scenario didn't bear thinking about -- and the fact that it was such an issue had White reeling.
Larry woke up the third day in a hard sweat, stumbling into the bathroom to jerk himself off and start up a tepid shower. His line of work wasn't bad guys versus the good guys; it never was and it never had been. It was just those who, for whatever reason, chose to do wrong by others, versus the guys who stood up and doled out the consequences of doing said wrong.
Hell, Micky couldn't count on one hand the number of cops who would call themselves 'good guys'. You shoot someone down in cold blood -- doesn't matter if they'd knocked your own mother's teeth in for a penny -- you were a murderer. The Police force of any city was just another kind of gang, after all; a bit more educated and better funded, keeping all the uncivilized crooks out of their territory.
Micky, Larry, the guy who was the son of Minerva and Haverd Dimmick, he accepted that. But all that taking a bullet for your partner bullshit, that was just media hype. Soldiers took bullets for each other. Firemen ran into burning buildings. Cops took bribes and ran into doughnut shops. Cops got up in riot gear and beat on hippies and shot students.
Cops made other people trust them, and then got them killed.
The shower tap was wrenched shut, Larry blinking the water out of his eyes before shaking his head like a wet dog. Orange was just some guy. Just some crook, some thief with a nice smile. There were dozens just like him and there would be dozens more to follow once he was locked up. Another junkie. Another wife-beater. Another manic Hollywood queer.
The phone rang with Larry halfway into his shirt, and he plucked it from its cradle before tugging his shirt down. "Speak."
"Uh. Woof-woof." Orange's smoky drawl curled into Larry's ear and Larry deflated. "Rudest greeting ever, seriously."
"How'd you get this number?" Wincing, because maybe that was something a cop would say. Drug dealers were allowed to be paranoid, weren't they?
"Why don't you say something like, hello, or White residence, or something nice like that?"
"Hello. My last name ain't actually White. What are you calling for, Orange?"
"Sheesh. Have your coffee yet? A week ago you'd have been leaping up the Queen's skirt for this phonecall."
"So where do I need to be."
"Hey," A shuffle, a rise in volume like Orange is leaning the phone closer to his face. "Chill the fuck out. I'm sorry, okay? I apologize for the other night. We gotta keep things on the level, you know, for the job."
Larry squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling slowly. "It's not that. We're cool, you and I."
"Rough night?"
"Bad dreams." If asked, Larry would have argued that you had to earn trust by being trustworthy. But really he'd made a slip. Mornings were not good for his mental faculties. "Got my fair share of baggage brought over from the east side. Don't worry about it."
"Okay." Orange's voice had perked. "You know that class joint Papa Joe had you at? DiNicio's?"
"When you were late. Yeah."
There's a pause where maybe Orange is smiling. When his voice returns, it's close again and low. "You couldn't take your eyes off my mouth. I didn't know if you wanted to fight me or fuck me."
Larry's stomach drops. "I'll solve the mystery for you, then. I wanted to cave your skull in for that haircut crack."
"Yeah but you were pretty damn forgiving by the end of the night."
"Your cheap fukken cigarillo gave me a headache."
A rasp of a laugh. "You were just jealous."
White holds the question in the back of his throat, eyebrows drawing down.
"You know," Orange's grin can be heard. "Because that cigar got to spend all night getting sucked on."
"Oh, Jesus," White's exasperation is battled by Orange's laughter. They were flirting, plain and simple, and Larry didn't know if he could be okay with that or not. "Just tell me when I need to get there."
"Tomorrow. Early. I'll treat you to dinner."
"I can buy my own damn din--" but the line had already gone dead. Larry hung the phone back in its cradle with two fingers, mulling over what criminals ever did concerning sexual harassment complaints in the workplace. Did they have a union, or...?
DiNicio's was fairly empty on a Wednesday night, Orange alone at a corner table in jeans and an open flannel revealing a blue Fantastic Four t-shirt.
"You ever dress like anything other than a punk?" White sits down and waves the host away when offered a menu. He orders them both a Philly steak, or as close to it as can be rummaged up from this damn desert, and the host leaves with a new sheen of sweat.
"What," Orange had watched the transaction with raised eyebrows, and now aimed his incredulity at White. "As opposed to dressing like some cut-throat money lender?"
White tugs at his vest. "Pinstripes make a man look taller, you know."
"You look like a grandpa."
"You look like a pizza guy."
Orange leans back, scrutinizes White over the lighting of a cigarette. "What are you anyway, twenty five?"
"Twenty eight. What are you, fourteen?"
Orange scratches his jaw, cracks a brief grin. "Thirty two."
"All them chemicals. Preserving you like so much formaldehyde."
Orange ashes his cigarette, sucks at his front teeth like he'd never considered his looks before. "It's the nose, I guess. Like I ain't grown into it yet."
"I think it's the eyes."
Orange falters in reaching for his water glass, glancing up at White before proceeding to take a sip.
"What? You got big eyes. Like this is news?"
"Yeah, I mean no; it's just that sometimes half the stuff out of your mouth is like you're finishing my sentences, only I haven't actually said any fucking thing. I mean, that's what makes you look like you're about ready to pull Capone on somebody's ass. Your fuckin' eyes, man." Orange shakes his head, swirling the water in its glass like he was aerating wine.
White's smile is controlled, smug. "Not the pinstripes?"
"Those help."
"Think I might go out and buy a fedora later," White baits. "Know any good haberdasheries 'round this town?"
Orange slams a hand on the table, making the silverware jump. He's chewing the inside of his cheek, grin caught under a glare.
"What?" White matches Orange's dissection with a scowl. "What? Orange, godammit, what'd I say?"
After a heartbeat, Orange composes himself. Sits straighter, rearranges the silverware. "I'll tell you later." He picks up a fork, twirls it, sets it back down. "When we aren't in public."
White relaxes. "Pervert."
"See," Orange is shaking his head. "It's like you can read my mind or somethin'."
Warnings: violence, cursing, drug use
Prompt: Orange/White AU, Larry is the (young/brash) detective and Orange is the criminal.
Summary: White slid into the seat, whistling low at that new car smell. New money, and not even a revolver taped under the dash. Orange got the car started with an asthmatic cough of the engine, sliding upright. He drove like he walked, slumped back with an arm thrown out over the wheel, glancing up at the rearview instead of twisting in his seat to check the road.
1
Larry was given an address and a time of day -- Friday ten a.m. -- and if he was surprised that any one of these crooks woke up before noon, he didn't show it. The main attraction, the big job, what would accumulate to hundreds of thousands (if not a solid mil) take; that was the main course and White wasn't allowed to skip the hors d'ouevres. Holdaway had warned him as much, and there was nothing Larry could do to keep his nose clean.
It would be his bad luck if he had to blow the whistle on the operation early to save someone's life during an aperitif, but apparently Mr. Orange favored the covert breaking-and-entering kind of robbery and less so the kind that took place in an alley at knife-point. (That was the value of bagging the Cabots at last -- all the unsolved robberies in that town would be halved if not eradicated entirely.)
It was Orange to escort Larry on the warm-up job because it was Orange who Papa Joe considered a 'great judge of character', having selectively weeded the Cabot ranks of two stone-cold murderers and an undercover cop already. The report to Holdaway read that Orange was like a production company's handler, interviewing the actors and screening all the junk mail. You didn't get to Eddie or Joe without going through Orange. He was at once too busy 'handling' the others on the team but at a drop of a dime he'd square all his attention on White, nose wrinkling in a sneer of a grin.
White noticed it, the force of change. He let the bad attitude roll off him like waves beating at a sea cliff, shutting down to a silence with a raised eyebrow. He knew it was a ruse but didn't know if Larry the White Russian should be sharp enough to know it, too. Orange was an awful lot like Larry sometimes -- like he couldn't help but crack a joke and make friendly and it was more fun than Larry should have had to make him slip up.
That was in a group, though, when pretenses had to be maintained. This job was going to be one-on-one, and Larry need only survive the dissection of those glassy green eyes for a little longer than an afternoon. How, for instance, had he known about the undercover detective Holdaway's people had sent the summer before? Larry had read the file, and either Detective Ferchetti had left something crucial out of his reports or the Cabots' attache really was that good.
Larry shoved all that anxiety to the bottom of his thoughts before he'd left his apartment, but the bus ride to the Valley had given him plenty of time to ruminate and work himself up again. He used that energy instead of trying to suppress it, harnessed the nervousness a casual drug dealer might feel shifting areas of expertise as he was. Orange's house was, much to Larry's surprise, in a ritzy fukken neighborhood.
It only took the few blocks from bus stop to the address in his pocket for White to realize this wasn't Orange's house. It was the target. It was the assignment. Orange was already waiting for him inside; the front door gave way to reveal an open living room with its breezeway doors thrown wide. Orange was perched on the back of the bright red leather couch, petting a hulking rottweiler with its broad head in his lap (drooling all over the hole at his knee, staining the denim dark). Orange greeted White with a bored smile.
"Well, you're not late."
"Jesus fucking christ, I thought we were meeting at your place first."
Orange shrugged under the bulk of a tan wool trench-coat he'd probably already liberated from the closets (judging by its ill fit). "You've obviously been away a long fucking time, if you're gonna forget what streets belong to which neighborhoods."
"I was just a kid when I left L.A.!"
Orange winced, calming the dog at his knee. "Keep it down, will ya? The neighbors know this couple is away to Mexico for the month and I don't want the dog sitter coming over early 'cos she heard your fine dulcetto." He easily and nimbly left the couch, the dog's bulk spilling after him with an excited huff. Larry edged back to the door.
"You afraid of dogs, new guy?"
"Ask me that question again after you've had yourself a rabies shot. It goes in the stomach, up to ten fucking needles."
Orange draws up, glancing down uncertainly at the animal as it drowsily inspects the warm breeze drifting through the room. "It ain't rabid." He pats its heavy ribs as if to reassure it. "But it can smell your fear. People aren't so very different than animals, you know. Even if you can school your expression and your words to model confidence, there's no hiding the stink of fear."
"Thanks for the advice, Doctor Doolittle. Can we get going on this job before the dogsitter pokes her dumb head in?"
Orange scratches his cheek in thought, tilting his chin from side to side. "Okay, sure. So what are you gonna go for first?"
"The doorknob," White gruffs impatiently. "To wipe my prints." He examples this, pulling a dark handkerchief from his trouser pocket.
"Okay. Then what." Orange has shrugged deeper into his coat and was idly playing footsie with the rottweiler, careful not to let the teeth scrape up his shoes too bad.
"You cold or somethin'?"
"Just withdrawals. I'll be sweating like a motherfucker in an hour or so."
White nods, sage about all things related to illicit substance. "You on that Program?" He's inspecting the house, peeking into corridors and fingering windowsills for the deactivated alarm wires.
"Methadone." It's like a curse word, and both men wince. Orange has his hands balled into the coat's pockets. "What are you gonna go for first, c'mon, I'm curious over here." He bounces in place, impatient.
Instead of answering, "You get a haircut?"
Orange rolls his eyes, fixing a cigarette to his mouth without lighting it. "Gotta look professional for the heist. Not gonna have any masks, so might as well leave behind a pretty security tape."
"Really?" Larry bends to the fireplace, running his hands under the brick sill for hidden valuables. He finds a spare set of keys but not much else. "No masks, huh. What are we robbing, a bank?"
"Jewelry store." Orange paces to the breezeway and fidgets with the cigarette he's not allowed to light. The dog wanders over to inspect White's progress, pulling anxiety sharp to the forefront.
White just knows the damn thing is going to snap into his face without warning, and he trails around to the kitchen just to escape it. There's nothing valuable he could see making away with; the decorations were cheap crystal and the appliances couldn't be taken on a bus to a pawn shop in broad daylight. He disappears to the bedroom and rifles carefully for jewelry or heirlooms. Turns the mattress over and remakes the bed.
By the time he's working on the bookshelves, Orange has moseyed around to poke questions through the air. "So what are you looking for?"
"Money tucked away for a rainy day. Hidden things. I think the keys in the fireplace go to a boat, or maybe a vacation home, or maybe this home. Unless there's a car in the garage."
Orange nods. "We're driving it out of here; keys would be a big help. Got anything else?"
"Unless we're going to pack the appliances into the trunk of that car, I'd say this go is a bust."
Orange is scratching his chin in thought again, trailing his thumbnail up and down the curve of his jaw. "That's a thought. Too many serial numbers to file away, though. So what made you toss the bed?"
White's insides nearly freeze. Maybe that's where Ferchetti had messed up, maybe he'd been too familiar with the ways of the criminal mind, too easily slipping into the detective's habit of covering every inch. "Well I figure," The lie comes easy, as much a relief as the breeze through the curtains. "Nice big house, nice neighborhood, cheap ass flea market shit on the walls? Kujo over here wearing a rusty ass chain insteada something studded with rhinestones? New money. Maybe even drug money. Anything of value, it's gonna be hidden."
But then again, he's being too smart. There's a pause between Orange and White and, for a second, Larry actually doubts himself. He can't be too incompetent, or else they won't be able to rely on him for the big heist. He can't be too good, either, or they'll suspect something's up. If Larry's weakness wasn't compassion, it'd be ego. Holdaway was right; Larry needed to stop showing off. He shrugs like he couldn't give a fuck. "Unless it's just that you already picked the place clean."
Orange grins, "I'm glad you'd think so, but nah. I suppose the car's the only thing we're going to net this time around, unless you're in the market for a new pet." He claps White's shoulder and earns a playful shove, the dog letting out a few nervous half-yelps at the semi-violence. "Lookit you! Such a good nanny," Orange coos, peeling the baggy of treats from his pocket before upending them on the carpet.
They leave the house unlocked and breezy and maybe even a little cleaner than they found it. The keys weren't a match, though, so Orange had to hot-wire their getaway mobile while White pried the garage door open. White approached the passenger side dusting his hands, knocking against the window. Orange struggled up into view, clearly annoyed, and rolled his eyes before punching at the door lock.
White slid into the seat, whistling low at that new car smell. New money, and not even a revolver taped under the dash. Orange got the car started with an asthmatic cough of the engine, sliding upright. He drove like he walked, slumped in the chair with an arm thrown out over the wheel, glancing up at the rearview instead of twisting in his seat to check the road.
White figured there was a need for conversation between them, but he wasn't about to babble on about bullshit. Never did like small talk, unless he was flirting with someone, and hey wasn't that a great idea. He chuckled out at the passing road, arm hanging out of the open widow.
"What's funny?"
"Dangerous ideas; sometimes I get 'em in my head and it's a trip just to consider."
"Oh yeah? Thinking about what you would have called that dog, if you'd taken her home?"
"Something dainty and misleading, like Tutu."
Orange cracks a wide grin and White feels like he can relax. "You familiar with Donny's Garage?"
"Nope."
"Chop shop. We might get a little shit for the transaction, but I wanna make sure the price is fair. New cars, man they're hardest to ply off 'cos the insurance companies get a right bug up their collective asses. Donny don't usually do new cars." Orange trails off suggestively. "I wanna see you convince him otherwise."
"What, like a salesman?" White's stomach had gone cold. He might end up hurting somebody after all.
"No, like a badass motherfucker. Like Baretta."
White paused. Fished his memory for any mistakes he might have made up to that point. "You mean like Mr. Nicholas, right? Baretta was the cop of that show."
Orange laughed. "I'm just glad you got that reference, man. You watch a lot of T.V.? Most stoners do, I find."
"Not a stoner," White wheedles, "But yeah I had a lot of free time doing what I did."
"You're not doing it anymore, huh?" Orange had shrugged out of his coat, pallid forehead shined in sweat.
"Even if I were, I never knew any rich white ladies and I didn't like to go skiing on fresh snow." He sounds petulant, and strains not to be so uppity. Even Mr. White Russian had standards, though.
"What, you a naturalist? Nothin' but pot and peyote?"
White chews over that image, nodding from side to side. "Yeah, I guess I was. I'd got into coke one winter but that's a messy fucking scene. Columbians, eesh." He could feel the baseball bat in his chapped hands, the carpetbag at his ankle, the ice seeping up the hem of his fitted trousers. That scene crept its way into his voice and he felt fuller in that car. Realer.
Orange was nodding, accepting, eyes glued to the road. "Hit the radio, will you?"
There was a certain unevolved element White had observed amongst most criminals. These were the people who had slipped through the cracks of the educational system; what smart ones there were, were almost always sociopaths. It stood to reason, then, that if you were on the wrong side of the Law you were either stupid or insane.
Sure, some decent people found themselves in bad situations and couldn't help but grow up to be products of their environment, but this hardly lasted past a certain mile marker of adulthood. Early twenties usually saw the decent ones at a steady job, with a family or enrolled in a correctional program. That was what the legal system was for, to put the mentally and emotionally stable ones back on their feet. As it was, the seasoned crooks were just... stuck in place. The people who steal and hurt just to make gain never grow out of a certain phase of their lives and the signs are very, very obvious.
Sometimes the signs are absurd and surreal, like the hardest motherfucker ever to prowl the streets might still sleep with a teddy bear, or that guy who knocked a granny's face in for her purse still buys his mother flowers on her birthday (there was nothing juvenile about being kind to your ma, but the contrast was still ridiculous). Or maybe a seasoned crook like Orange still collected comic books because regular books and magazines couldn't hold his attention -- and there it was, and there it wasn't, because Orange wasn't dumb.
Which meant he might have been psychotic, or he might have been one of those unfortunate products of an impoverished upbringing that saw him clinging on to that survival attitude as long as humanly possible. The plain fact was that criminals never grew up. Maybe they took such delight in their jobs that it seemed like they never could grow up, or at least they never had to, because being miserable with your job was the American stamp of adulthood and if Orange was ever miserable with his job then he could simply get around to doing something else, couldn't he?
So there was that ridiculous scene, Orange slumped in the front seat of the car he'd just stolen flipping through the comic book he'd picked up when White had disappeared to buy cigarettes. He'd probably stolen the comic, too, but White knew better than to ask. There was a dual philosophy circling White's thoughts on the subject; was it that criminals were stuck in the selfish throes of a second childhood, or was that just what unhappy stiffs with miserable jobs told themselves because they only wished they could indulge their Id with such abandon?
Root instinct and juvenile behavior weren't so very far apart, after all. Was it developmental arrest, then, or just a matter of circumstance providing opportunity to wield a state of mind with which every man and woman was born? Larry had a difficult time picturing Orange as anything but a criminal. He knew the ubernerdy manchildren that took over their parents' basements well into their forties and not a one of those guys ever got around to wearing a wedding ring. So you take a nerd, grow him up in a rough neighborhood, and parental neglect makes him enough of a badass to net himself a wife?
"You're thinking too loud," Orange complains, folding the comic into the pocket of his new out-of-season coat. "Steam comin' outta your ears." He bends awkwardly to refit the wiring under the steering wheel and the car jerks to life.
White growls a non-answer, ashing his cigarette out the window. It was all just conjecture anyway, nothing solid to go into any reports. This Donny guy, though, that garage was going to be a place of mighty interest to the boys in blue.
"Relax," Orange's reassurance is a bit startling, as is his acuity. Definitely not one of the dumb ones. "Donny's not a bad guy, he just thinks he's cleverer than he really is. You know the type?"
White's laugh hardly leaves his throat. "The kind that say 'commode' when 'restroom' would do?"
Orange's eyebrows leap to his hairline. "Naw, them's just the wordsy kind that maybe watch a few too many crime noire flicks. I mean the real jokers, the ones that deal in finance. Like numbers being solid somehow makes them wieldable, weaponized."
Diplomatically, "Are Donny's numbers solid?"
"Not hardly half. It's an unstable market, is stolen cars. Supply and demand, what parts go where and get sold to whom." Orange tilts his head from side to side, face as animated as any sincere businessman. "I don't claim to be an expert on the topic but I know we don't deserve to get screwed outta our rightful take. This car is brand fucking new which means the parts are brand fucking new which means Donny and his boys are going to be able to sell off every single bit of it. If he's gonna wanna pay us like this is just some heap we rolled in from the junkyard --"
"I get it," White is nodding. "So how much does a brand new car cost, in parts?"
"Same as it costs once it's put together and shown off on a Lot, maybe a little less because I mean," Orange pauses to take the left turn onto the highway. "I mean, you know, either way we're netting a profit. And we don't wanna bankrupt our grift, that's just bad manners."
"All right," White contemplates the cherry of his cigarette. "So how much does a Lot vehicle go for, then?"
Orange glances sharply from the road to White and back again twice. "What, you don't know?"
"I'm from --" he cuts himself off, illustrating compliance to Papa Joe's demands about personal information (though he'd have to start leaking tidbits soon if he wanted the kind of rapport that earned Orange's trust). "-- a big city, cowpoke. We have these things a lot like trains, only they run underground."
Orange laughs, suspicion diffused. "Okay, fuck you then. Useless." It's one of those good-natured insults, one that almost has Larry reaching over and punching the guy in the arm. He catches himself, fist raised between them, lets his hand fall back to the padded armrest. Orange clears his throat as if to announce an Emmy winner. "A wood-paneled Cadillac of this make and model goes for around ten smacking big ones... or a little more."
White nods. Orange isn't going to tell him the asking price, or how to haggle with Donny. That's for White to figure out, and he understands the thinking-on-your-feet aspect of this job. It's not about being an amateur at grift and barter; it's about being a professional under an unfamiliar circumstance. White could respect that, find enthusiasm for it even.
They walk away from Donny's garage with seven thousand in cold cash, and Orange calls White a pussy and Donny a cheapskate but he does so with his arm around White's neck and his knuckles in his hair and he only relents once the bus shows up and White chases him down the seat aisle like he's the kid who just stole his comic book. They remember they are adults once they reach the back of the bus and compose themselves to a seat, Orange ever-vigilant and White with an elbow propped on the narrow sill of the window, hand covering his grin.
2
Seven thou in take-away was cause for celebration. After the Cabot's cut, Orange had five grand to split between them; and he insisted, because how else was White going to pay his rent and eat? Cars were usually a lot harder to get away with in that either their alarms were set or their owners would notice the theft right away. They'd lucked out finding one left in a garage by happenstance of vacation, though White never doubted Orange having done his homework weeks beforehand.
Two and a half K to go into the evidence vault until the end of the trial, and then the city would absorb it and spread it out like rain. A penny to everyone.
That didn't stop White from celebrating with the rest of the boys, hardly denting the allowance the L.A. precinct had siphoned for 'illicit transactions'. The paperwork on undercover expenditures was a nightmare. Did hookers and blow go under utility and grocery? Was booze a miscellaneous or an extraneous? None of it was Larry's money.
If it were Larry's money, he'd forego the blow and buy Orange a nice Philly style steak, nothing like the dry anemic slabs ground up for chilli meat hereabouts. It was a heartbeat later that White realized wanting to take the guy out for steak was a little too... something. Stupid. Gay. A little too much like a waste of time. He had to work on the other suspects, maybe catch what info slipped out between the cursing and the cat-calling.
Nothing doing. These joeys were professional bullshitters and breeze-shooters, pool sharkers and sweet-talkers. The dive was crowded -- and it was a dive, windowless and half a floor underground, hot and damp and full to pressing from brick wall to brick wall. Men and women lost their shirts on the dance floor, a bare tit disappeared behind a large ringed hand, and by the time the knife-fight broke out Orange had already seized Eddie's elbow and steered him toward the back exit.
The rest of the boys followed piecemeal, Blonde enigmatic and unaffected at Eddie's side while Pink and Brown hassled Blue into letting his 'date' get back to serving the drinks so they could get the fuck out of there before the cops showed up. White lent a shoulder to keeping Pink away from the curb; Pink had hit the juice pretty hard claiming it made him ace at pool, shooting in 'an altered state of consciousness with ninja-like precision'. Or some shit.
Pink was rambling fairly vehemently about the power of the subconscious and how shooting (pool, or) a rifle is a lot like playing the piano and that it's all about breathing and making your body a tripod. On and on, until it came down to what Larry wanted to hear, to some fatal bragging point, and that was Mr. Pink's Hawkeye medal. Scrawny rat fuck had been in the military, though it was no large guess to see why he'd dropped out.
Cadets, drop-outs, retirees, Pink was too young to be a veteran but Larry would bet balls to bullseye that he had a father who was. It would still be a long search, but Larry now had a face and a general time frame and the government was anything if not exact in its record keeping. Larry damn near wished he wasn't in blackout; he'd have loved to see Holdaway's face, deliver the news himself. He'd type the report up tonight, even, alcohol burning through his veins like potent lamp oil.
The group managed to herd Pink into a cab and stood outside it while the cabby peeked nervously at the street, arguing who (if anyone) should maybe go with Mr. Pink and make sure he didn't pass out in any compromisable places. White feigned reluctance but volunteered, keen on getting an address to feed to the file search. He climbed in, bracing Pink upright against the far door.
White slapped at Pink's hollow face to rouse him, shaking the man by his lapels to get the address out of him. This gained (a Hills hotel, double damn he was rich and from out-of-town), White repeated the destination but still the cab did not pull forward. He was still quite drunk, so it took asking after the hold-up twice before the cabby could understand him, but by then Orange had thrown a wad of cash through the driver's window and shoved in to the remaining space of the back seat.
They were all too drunk to care at the proximity, having just come from a dive where strangers had their elbows in intimate places. Squashing up next to a guy you even sorta had to consider a friend was no big deal compared to that, though Pink fidgeted and quoted a 'personal neuroses with enclosed spaces'. White had to agree that the L.A. heat, even diffused by nightfall, made the experience less pleasant.
He'd been half-assing to reassure Mr. Pink, and the cab had finally pulled out with a lurch, and on taking inventory of his surroundings he found Orange sitting forward with an arm against the plexiglass, but more importantly (and that his thoughts ran like this, without punctuation, mouth running on auto-pilot to keep Pink engaged in conversation so as to keep him awake), but, more importantly, on meeting Orange's expression and expecting to find the usual mocking sneer or the more popular calm disinterest,
AT THAT POINT, in that cab, pressed in the middle seat between Pink's gangly sprawl (and, on second thought, avoiding that and finding himself more on Orange's half of the car and maybe that was--) laughing because jesus h. christ Pink was soaked and Orange's grin crooked up half his face like maybe he didn't want it to but couldn't stop it really, hell White was a funny guy when he was annoyed, and
And did you see that guy with the knife? What the hell, way to ruin an evening, all fun and games until somebody loses a spleen, and Orange really does laugh at that and what, did Orange think White was going to rob Pink, what was with the escort?
Did White say that out loud? He didn't mean to, really, because what he'd really wanted to ask was, was it hot in California, or was it just Orange. That question went unasked, for obvious reasons (chief not White's personal safety but in fact how cheesy a line it was), but it was there again, the thing that had derailed Larry's thoughts in the first place. Orange was braced against the plexiglass, half his attention to the road.
When that attention shifted, Christ, White could swear he felt himself being bottomed out like a canoe struck by lighting. Burning and drowning at the same time. Elbows in intimate places, body language. Check your damn body language, White. Arm thrown out over the back of Orange's half of the seat.
White nearly removes his arm, realizing it had been there all along and maybe why Orange hadn't sat back properly and maybe buckled his fucking belt (none of them had or would), but
The cab takes a sharp turn and the Hills are a good forty minutes away and Orange settles back in his seat with boneless inebriation and his hair is damp against White's forearm until
There's a turn and White shifts to get comfortable in the silence left behind in the wake of Pink's blackout. Orange's head fits in the crook of his shoulder as if it's not too hot at all, but maybe
The lights of the underpass paint Orange's face in stark claps of industrial yellow neon and he squints, blinking up from the doze before hiding his eyes against Larry's neck. Against White's neck. Against the neck of some midwest gangster he doesn't know from Tom Mick or Harry, and Micky doesn't once drop character because sometimes crooks weren't stupid or crazy but they could be queer if they were neither or both of these, or maybe they had bad tempers or just bad luck and it found them six months in county and
The cabby pulled to the back of the hotel and White chuckles encouragement as he shakes Orange and Pink awake. The night was a lot cooler by the time they got Pink propped up between them (and that was why Orange had gone, at the behest of Nice Guy that Pink not come down with something as disastrous as a concussion when White inevitably dropped his talkative ass down a flight of stairs).
There weren't any stairs in the hotel, a ranch-style joint set in the scenic rock like a mudslide disaster waiting to happen (where White was from, it rained, okay? Orange found this hilarious). Hotel keys fished out of Pink's pocket (a game of rock-paper-scissors determining who would brave that venture), Orange snapping an impatient question as White made sure Pink was laid out on his bed without the danger of drowning in his own puke.
White didn't understand the sudden change in attitude until he saw the credit card, and even in the cold AC of the carpeted hallway he hardly registered what the point was of breaking into an unoccupied hotel room, but
Orange had a grip on the hem of White's Hawaiian shirt, and White followed this tug because he was drunk and victorious and couldn't take his eyes off Orange's sharp grin from day one and Orange was an observant fuck and if he never found Larry out for a cop he sure as hell found him out for something else, and hell if
Larry knew it was a bad idea even before the chemical tang of cocaine bloomed from Orange's mouth to his, bitter and distinct. He startled from the kiss, the light from the hallway closed out as his back hit the door. Too drunk. Too stupid. Too damn dark in there.
"Hey," Orange soothed, the heavy fold of a leather jacket hitting the floor. "Relax man, I'm not gonna jump you." White got a little warning this time, Orange's bony hands searching out his shoulders, the jumping pulse in his neck, then combing through his hair. Another one of those absurd contrasts; for a guy who made a career out of taking what he wanted from others, Orange was remarkably giving. He kissed like they had just got back from Prom, like White's mouth was the most fascinating thing in the known world.
White had anchored his grip at Orange's sides, cementing the image of slow dancing in a highschool gym. Taffeta on the basketball hoops and barbiturates in the punch.
Orange slid and arm around White's neck to pull himself closer, shoulders to knees keeping out the dark chill settled raw on damp skin. "What," he complains when White braces their bodies apart. "What, what," he mouths against White's ear like he knows it would drive him crazy, as sure as if he'd read it on a file. "I'm clean, you asshole -- certificate of health in my wallet. Right next to the condoms."
"Good to know," White hadn't trusted his voice to work, especially at the next reluctant admission, "So you're clean, but you're also fucked up."
"Jury's out on that." Orange mused, though he had given White some space. Hotel curtains were a heavy barricade against outside light and noise, and either Orange didn't want to risk a lamp or simply didn't have the patience to go hunting for one. Maybe it was dark for a good reason.
Maybe Larry didn't want to go hunting out a lamp either. "I mean you're high. You didn't even ask me if I was clean."
Orange's hands do noise to the door on both sides of White's head, slapping the wood before pushing himself away. "So tell me you're clean, then."
Larry can think a little clearer without the smell of sweat and leather crawling down his throat. "You're married."
Orange scoffs. "I'm not asking you to wear my class ring, Suzie Q, I just wanna suck your cock."
White is surprised that they'd been thinking along the same lines; that this encounter was a little too... something. Too new. Too intimate. The kind of rendezvous teenagers would have, because they knew it wouldn't last past the summer but they were drunk and self-centered and delusional on hormones. "I'm flattered."
"Yeah. You're somethin'."
"I'm also shitfaced. Nothin' doin', friend, sorry."
"You're sober enough."
White has crossed his arms, leaned his head against the door. Kept trying to swallow back the aftertaste of the crack rock Orange had probably been dissolving under his lip all night, wondering if it was enough to show up on a blood test. Wondering if it was enough to get him addicted. "Maybe. But you're still married."
"For the tax returns."
"I got a code. I got standards."
"'Course you do." Orange sounds less manic, at least, but the defeat echoes between them. The repeated spark of a butane lighter, a small weak pocket of light where Orange wears his hair ruffled and boyish, disappearing as the cigarette is breathed to life. Footfall in the dark, the healthy noiselessness of a new mattress giving way under a body.
White steps forward because he can't just leave it god damn well enough alone. He's unsurprised when he feels the tug of his beltloop, knees hitting the edge of the bed.
"You nightblind?"
White means to laugh, he just doesn't get around to it. "No, but your pupils are probably blown so wide I bet it's given you super vision."
"Faster than a speeding bullet..." Orange mumbles, manages to coax White to take a sit. His voice lowers dramatically. "Able to leap to erroneous conclusions in a single bound."
"Listen to the Harvard grad over here. Erroneous."
"I got that word from Ghostbusters."
White's eyes are glued to the burning cherry of Orange's cigarette. "Dan Aykroyd is a trip."
Orange makes an agreement in the back of his throat. "And Billy-what's-his'face."
"Crystal? He ain't in that film."
"Sure he is, he plays Peter."
White's silent laugh shakes the bed, Orange's heat soaking his hip. "You mean -- aw fuck, what's his name..."
"Yeah you're right though, it ain't Billy Crystal."
"Not even close. Budge over, I gotta let the room stop spinning."
Orange makes space, but not much. They fit together like they had at the door, like they did in the cab, inebriated and lazy, and Larry waxes philosophical. "Chinese saying goes something like, a hundred years, shit, what was it -- a hundred years in a boat --"
"It takes a hundred years for two people to share the same boat, a thousand years for them to share the same pillow. Fortune cookie."
"Bill Murray."
"Bill Murray ain't chi-- oh, that's the guy."
"Yeah, Peter Spengler."
"No, wait, no," Orange twists in place, settling back so he can rest his head in the crook of White's shoulder. "You got the characters confused. Spengler's the geeky one."
"Oh yeah, the Jew. There was a Jew and a black guy and Peter was the goofy stud who wanted to get with Sigourney Weaver. Who was the other nerd?"
"Rick Moranis?"
"Naw, naw, there was four of 'em, four Ghostbusters."
"That's plenty true, but people don't usually credit Ernie Hudson 'cos Winston was a late arrival to the team."
White plucks Orange's smoke from his hand and takes a bracing pull. He exhales, wondering if this was building the kind of rapport he needed to be building and not some other, more dangerous set-up. "That's all Greek to me. I just know there were four of 'em and Rick Moranis was the only nerd who actually got to tap himself some demonic ass."
Orange's answer is a smile evident in the huff of his breath, his knuckles tapping out a steady rhythm on White's chest. Orange could almost sleep, if he weren't metabolizing an unstable upper.
White himself felt halfway to passing out, body leaden in the swaying embrace of still-a-little-too-drunk. He probably wouldn't have gotten to his report that night anyway.
Orange's voice is stark. "Lemme jerk you off."
White winces. "Maybe later, when we aren't talking about the Ghostbusters."
Orange's snicker is stifled. "Squeamish over a little ectoplasm?"
"Dan Aykroyd's doofy mug would haunt my fucking nightmares."
Low, deadpan -- "It's the Staypuff marshmallow man."
The resulting scuffle saw them from one side of the bed to the other. A shove here or there, a jab to the ribs, Orange cursing at minimal volume and White biting down on his laughter. The hindsight of sobriety, since the noise would have been equal if not greater had they actually been fucking. Unless Orange was used to this, to keeping it quiet, to doing this shit on the sly.
"Heya, White..."
Larry realizes he'd been caught up in his thoughts and lets his fists loose from Orange's shirt. "Hn?"
"You AC/DC?"
This time White does laugh, a sharp 'ha' that he repeats again for emphasis. "Think maybe you should ask that before you pull a drunk man into a hotel room? Some guys out there, beat you half to death for pulling a stunt like that on the wrong impression."
"Yeah, no, yeah, I mean, you like women?"
"If they're nice enough, yeah." Slightly annoyed, White doesn't bother to ask why Orange had been so confident over whether or not he'd liked men.
"Wanna go pick one up?"
"Jesus Christ, you trying to kill yourself?"
"What, hey, naw," Orange struggles to a sit, the dent of his weight pulling Larry toward the middle of the bed. "Nothing or nobody from the Boulevard. I know a decent place, though, they vet. Just wanna get laid, yanno," A sniff, "Get the base outta my veins."
White tries to shrug back into the warm spot of the coverlet. "So go get laid." There's a tension in the pause like maybe Orange is going to ask him for money, but then --
"Nevermind then, if you ain't interested."
White's laugh is stained by disbelief. "What the fuck does that even matter?" Before he can stop himself, "Why?"
White's eyes have adjusted to the gloom, and he can barely make out the dip of Orange's shoulders as he waffles in indecision. "Long story, or short?"
"Crissakes, asshole. Short."
"I want to see your dick."
"... Okay. So what's the long story?"
"If I'm lucky? Your dick."
"Hardy fucking har."
"That's the idea."
"You wanna get smacked?"
"Okay. Sure. I can be into that."
"Orange. Enough wise-assing. What's the deal here? What's the matter with you?"
"I don't want you on the team."
Larry's pulse thunders through his ears. He sits up. "Did I ever, once, ever fuck up or screw you over or make Papa Joe look bad? Huh? Did I?"
"No, man, and it ain't anything like Quid Pro Quo over here, believe me, it's just. Jesus. You're good. You'd make a good thief. The Cabots, man, they need guys like you. This job," An exhale. "We aren't wearing any masks. That's gotta tell you something. We aren't even using our real names. The only safe way anybody could conceivably move that much ice through the market is anonymously, right?"
"Sure, I follow."
"So, Joe gets his cut once we make the sell. By ourselves. Individually. Preferably a few borders apart from California, and I don't mean state-wise."
"... So?"
"So I don't think you should be on this job. Most of the guys on the team have plans to get far, far away from the states. Do something else with their lives, maybe. But you're good at this line of work and it just feels like you only just got here to just. I dunno. I'm high."
"What happens if the guys don't or can't make the sell, or somehow Joe Cabot doesn't get his share?"
"He knows the buyers. They take the share right at the transaction. We're just the middle-men, the splash page, some faces the media can point the blame at."
"Yeah okay. I get it."
"You're gonna hear all this when Joe calls you around."
"If I get the job."
Orange falls back to the mattress. "Man, don't even listen to me. You're great. You'll do great." His legs find their way over White's lap, feet wagging off the side of the bed. "Wallet's in my jacket, if you want to have a look at that bloodwork sheet."
Larry's chest pinches in tight. He could have a look, and get Orange's name as easy as that. His hesitation is snapped up in the jaws of Orange's tireless observation, though, and the moment passes -- Orange removes himself from Larry, from the bed, fishes around the floor for his jacket. Pulls it on.
Couldn't have read much of anything in the dark, anyway.
3
Larry spent the next three days in his apartment, painting when he wasn't typing, working his hands to keep his mind busy. That had been a close fucking call with Orange, and if he ever sat down and thought it over he'd have to admit that he'd done the wrong thing in letting that name get away from him.
Larry was a good cop, he really was, he knew to which side of the law he pledged his loyalty. Orange was on the other side of that, the wrong side. Maybe prison would be good for him. Straighten him out. Get him off all that dope. Maybe he'd be one of the success stories, getting a cut in his sentence for cooperation.
Any other scenario didn't bear thinking about -- and the fact that it was such an issue had White reeling.
Larry woke up the third day in a hard sweat, stumbling into the bathroom to jerk himself off and start up a tepid shower. His line of work wasn't bad guys versus the good guys; it never was and it never had been. It was just those who, for whatever reason, chose to do wrong by others, versus the guys who stood up and doled out the consequences of doing said wrong.
Hell, Micky couldn't count on one hand the number of cops who would call themselves 'good guys'. You shoot someone down in cold blood -- doesn't matter if they'd knocked your own mother's teeth in for a penny -- you were a murderer. The Police force of any city was just another kind of gang, after all; a bit more educated and better funded, keeping all the uncivilized crooks out of their territory.
Micky, Larry, the guy who was the son of Minerva and Haverd Dimmick, he accepted that. But all that taking a bullet for your partner bullshit, that was just media hype. Soldiers took bullets for each other. Firemen ran into burning buildings. Cops took bribes and ran into doughnut shops. Cops got up in riot gear and beat on hippies and shot students.
Cops made other people trust them, and then got them killed.
The shower tap was wrenched shut, Larry blinking the water out of his eyes before shaking his head like a wet dog. Orange was just some guy. Just some crook, some thief with a nice smile. There were dozens just like him and there would be dozens more to follow once he was locked up. Another junkie. Another wife-beater. Another manic Hollywood queer.
The phone rang with Larry halfway into his shirt, and he plucked it from its cradle before tugging his shirt down. "Speak."
"Uh. Woof-woof." Orange's smoky drawl curled into Larry's ear and Larry deflated. "Rudest greeting ever, seriously."
"How'd you get this number?" Wincing, because maybe that was something a cop would say. Drug dealers were allowed to be paranoid, weren't they?
"Why don't you say something like, hello, or White residence, or something nice like that?"
"Hello. My last name ain't actually White. What are you calling for, Orange?"
"Sheesh. Have your coffee yet? A week ago you'd have been leaping up the Queen's skirt for this phonecall."
"So where do I need to be."
"Hey," A shuffle, a rise in volume like Orange is leaning the phone closer to his face. "Chill the fuck out. I'm sorry, okay? I apologize for the other night. We gotta keep things on the level, you know, for the job."
Larry squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling slowly. "It's not that. We're cool, you and I."
"Rough night?"
"Bad dreams." If asked, Larry would have argued that you had to earn trust by being trustworthy. But really he'd made a slip. Mornings were not good for his mental faculties. "Got my fair share of baggage brought over from the east side. Don't worry about it."
"Okay." Orange's voice had perked. "You know that class joint Papa Joe had you at? DiNicio's?"
"When you were late. Yeah."
There's a pause where maybe Orange is smiling. When his voice returns, it's close again and low. "You couldn't take your eyes off my mouth. I didn't know if you wanted to fight me or fuck me."
Larry's stomach drops. "I'll solve the mystery for you, then. I wanted to cave your skull in for that haircut crack."
"Yeah but you were pretty damn forgiving by the end of the night."
"Your cheap fukken cigarillo gave me a headache."
A rasp of a laugh. "You were just jealous."
White holds the question in the back of his throat, eyebrows drawing down.
"You know," Orange's grin can be heard. "Because that cigar got to spend all night getting sucked on."
"Oh, Jesus," White's exasperation is battled by Orange's laughter. They were flirting, plain and simple, and Larry didn't know if he could be okay with that or not. "Just tell me when I need to get there."
"Tomorrow. Early. I'll treat you to dinner."
"I can buy my own damn din--" but the line had already gone dead. Larry hung the phone back in its cradle with two fingers, mulling over what criminals ever did concerning sexual harassment complaints in the workplace. Did they have a union, or...?
DiNicio's was fairly empty on a Wednesday night, Orange alone at a corner table in jeans and an open flannel revealing a blue Fantastic Four t-shirt.
"You ever dress like anything other than a punk?" White sits down and waves the host away when offered a menu. He orders them both a Philly steak, or as close to it as can be rummaged up from this damn desert, and the host leaves with a new sheen of sweat.
"What," Orange had watched the transaction with raised eyebrows, and now aimed his incredulity at White. "As opposed to dressing like some cut-throat money lender?"
White tugs at his vest. "Pinstripes make a man look taller, you know."
"You look like a grandpa."
"You look like a pizza guy."
Orange leans back, scrutinizes White over the lighting of a cigarette. "What are you anyway, twenty five?"
"Twenty eight. What are you, fourteen?"
Orange scratches his jaw, cracks a brief grin. "Thirty two."
"All them chemicals. Preserving you like so much formaldehyde."
Orange ashes his cigarette, sucks at his front teeth like he'd never considered his looks before. "It's the nose, I guess. Like I ain't grown into it yet."
"I think it's the eyes."
Orange falters in reaching for his water glass, glancing up at White before proceeding to take a sip.
"What? You got big eyes. Like this is news?"
"Yeah, I mean no; it's just that sometimes half the stuff out of your mouth is like you're finishing my sentences, only I haven't actually said any fucking thing. I mean, that's what makes you look like you're about ready to pull Capone on somebody's ass. Your fuckin' eyes, man." Orange shakes his head, swirling the water in its glass like he was aerating wine.
White's smile is controlled, smug. "Not the pinstripes?"
"Those help."
"Think I might go out and buy a fedora later," White baits. "Know any good haberdasheries 'round this town?"
Orange slams a hand on the table, making the silverware jump. He's chewing the inside of his cheek, grin caught under a glare.
"What?" White matches Orange's dissection with a scowl. "What? Orange, godammit, what'd I say?"
After a heartbeat, Orange composes himself. Sits straighter, rearranges the silverware. "I'll tell you later." He picks up a fork, twirls it, sets it back down. "When we aren't in public."
White relaxes. "Pervert."
"See," Orange is shaking his head. "It's like you can read my mind or somethin'."