fic: Confidence Tricks, Part Three
Summary: When did he become so trusting of strangers, especially ones who zip-tie his wrists, drag him to a dingy motel forty minutes outside the city, carry a gun in their waistband, and have worked for the government?
AN: Okay, first things first. My best friend, Ashley, became my offical-like beta for this part. And without her there wouldn't even be a Part Three up right now, so. Second of all, I'm going to be in London over the next two weeks so I probably won't be posting anything during that time. I will update as soon as I get home, though. I've never posted a WIP before and so I'm trying my hardest to update regularly.
They check into the motel with no problems, unless Harvey's theme song predicament is counted.
("Why didnt he question my zip-ties?" Mike asks as he's walked through the halls and away from the lobby. Harvey's hand rests on the small of his back and the man's expression is cloudy.
"Yeah." Harvey mutters, his eyes narrowed in thought, "What was that guy humming?"
"What?" Mike asks in reply, dodging out of the way of a woman and her suitcase and she squeezes past them. She looks at them suspiciously but doesn't say anything. He can hear the padded clinking of her high heels even as they turn another a corner. If the Chilton is the highest form of safety and perfection, then the Stop 8 is the lowest.
"What was that guy humming? Come on, keep up." Harvey puts the key in the lock when they reach the room and pushes open the door, gesturing for Mike to go before him.
"Um," Mike says, because he's trying to place the tune, "The Two's Company theme song?"
"Yeah, that's it!" Harvey snaps his fingers and bobs his head, murmuring some of the words. "Thanks.")
Mike's just getting comfortable in the creaky wooden chair opposite the shaded window when Harvey places the briefcase on the table and clicks the locks open.
"Look," Mike starts, dread filling his gut, but Harvey has gone unnaturally still and so he doesn't finish the thought.
"Harvey?"
"This is weed." Harvey says slowly, his voice completely steady.
Uneasily, Mike lets out an, "uh," as Harvey curses under his breath and pulls out a cell phone. He punches in some numbers and brings it up to his ear. There's a slight pause and then his expression grows agitated.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He growls out into the receiver.
Mike can hear a high voice replying from the other end.
"No, Jessica, you gave me a junkie."
"I'm not a junkie!" Mike argues, standing up.
"Oh, you're right, I'm sorry. The fucking briefcase of marijuana is just for decoration." Harvey snarls at him, and then he points to the chair, "Sit down."
Mike sits. He hears the voice on the other end of the phone again and then Harvey asks his name.
"Mike" he says, after a brief pause. He feels like somehow Harvey would know if he were lying.
"What do you mean he's not the guy? He matched your description perfectly. Fresh-eyed, gawky," he pauses to glance at Mike, "Twitchy."
"Hey!" Mike cries out in protest, but Harvey just waves at him.
"Danny Whitfield?" Harvey says faintly, and Mike's stomach drops.
"You're looking for Danny?" He asks. He's seeing about five scenarios of where this conversation could lead him and he doesn't like the outcome of any of them.
Harvey looks at him for a long time.
"Jessica, I have to go." he hangs up, and then to Mike he says, "You know this guy?"
"He's a friend of a friend."
"Oh yeah?" Harvey asks, moving so that he's completely facing the younger man, "What friend is that?"
Mike smiles bitterly. "The one who got me into this mess," He states, letting out an agitated sigh.
"Here's what we're going to do." Harvey pulls a pocketknife from his pant's pocket and walks over to where Mike is sitting. He reaches behind him, pushes the sharp edge of the knife against the plastic and swipes, and then the pressure against Mike's wrists is gone.
Mike is rubbing at the raw area where the zip-ties had cut into his skin when Harvey pockets the knife again.
"You work for me now." Harvey inclines his head slightly, the action showing Mike that he's not going to be persuaded on this point.
Mike yelps a quick "What?" anyway.
"You heard me. Since you seem to have all of these little connections."
"No." Mike growls. He was already in a situation similar to this one just a few hours before, he's not about to be pulled into something like this again. "I don't work for anyone."
"Really?" He looks at the briefcase purposefully (Mike derives two meanings from this gesture: 1) Your ass will be on the line if you don't work for me. I have my own connections. And 2) Your friend made you their bitch, why shouldn't I?) "Because it sort of looks like you do."
"Yeah, but," Mike looks down at his freed hands, "He's my friend. It's different."
Harvey snorts and takes off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves. Mike tries not to stare at the bare skin of his upperarms for too long.
"Some friend he is, huh?" Harvey sits in the chair across from him and winces when he hears it squeak in protest. He stares at Mike for several minutes in deep thought, and under his hard gaze the younger man shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "You aren't a dealer, are you?" The way he words it makes it seem like it's not a question.
"No," Mike spits out, his anger rising. God, why is he in this situation? Why does he always get stuck in situations like this?
"Good." Harvey says, nodding. He has his phone out again and is going through it. "I'd say you're more of a scammer, myself." He looks up breifly to acknowledge the barely-there look of surprise on Mike's face and smiles. "It used to be my job to try not to get caught up in the likes of you." His tone is slightly mocking, but somehow Mike knows he's teasing.
"Oh yeah?" Mike asks, because he's honestly curious. He was just dragged forty minutes out of the city and into a motel room by some guy who screams danger and arrogance, and he can't read him like he can most people.
"I worked for the government for a while, yeah." Harvey looks above Mike's head and smiles ruefully at the wall. "It seems that I don't work well when I work for someone."
Mike rolls his eyes and struggles to keep the sarcastic really? from escaping his mouth.
Harvey comes back to himself with a blink of his eyes. He leans onto the table, making it wobble in his direction. His face is a serious mask.
"I meant it when I said you're working for me now."
Mike scowls and looks around the room, at the single bed with the chocolate on the pillow, at the mini refrigerator that's humming it's mechanical noise. At the dip in the curtains where the material bunches up against the air conditioning unit. He feels like he should be complaining more, but he won't. He's tired of trying to think of ways to get out of this situation; a dull pain has started to pound deeply behind his eyes.
"Now tell me about Danny Whitfield." Harvey orders, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs at the ankles. Mike can hear the material of his trousers sigh at the movement.
"Twenty-nine, high school drop-out, but surprisingly intelligent. He's six feet two inches and weighs roughly two hundred and fifty pounds. He has three brothers and one sister, two of which are deceased, as are his parents. When he was twenty two he was interrogated by local police for supposedly smuggling bombs, but the charges fell through. It turns out that he was smuggling drugs and other things, though.
"He's been out on bail twice before and is under suspicion of murder and treason, but the CIA is trying to keep that on the hush-hush so I'm not sure how believable it is."
Harvey interrupts him with a shake of his head and a raised hand.
"How do you know all of that? How do you know about all of his earlier charges?"
"I read it," Mike shrugs, his expression chagrined. He tugs nervously at his tie and Harvey narrows his eyes.
"You read it?" He says. His tone is the perfect example of incredulity. "Mike, that report was from seven years ago. It was completely destroyed right after it was deemed classified information. And anyone who knew about it was paid off a generous amount."
"Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious, for stating things I already know." Mike says slowly, leaning back in his chair, "I read it seven years ago. And remembered it."
Harvey's eyebrows furrow as he ignores the childish joke.
"I read things and I remember them. That's just what I do." Mike answers finally.
Between the time the first word leaves his mouth and the last word sits in the air, he wonders when he became so comfortable with letting this man know these select few things about him. He was taught from a young age that it was always better to keep his personal stuff to himself, and now not only does Harvey know that he's a con, but he probably knows exactly what his specialty is too. When did he become so trusting of strangers? Especially ones who zip-tied his wrists, dragged him to a dingy motel forty minutes outside the city, carried a gun in their waistband, and have worked for the government?
"Good job, Michael." He mutters under his breath, and when he lifts his eyes to see Harvey's raised eyebrow he coughs, slightly embarrassed, because wow, now he's talking to himself, really?
"Okay, fine. That's another bonus to you working under me." Mike swears he tries to erase the mental images that sentence gives him before they even start, but when Harvey pushes himself up and he sees the muscles of his arms move beneath the cloth of his shirt, he realizes he's fucked.
Completely fucked.
"Now, tell me everything you know about Danny that you haven't read, and I'll see what I can do," Harvey states, his voice trailing off as he begins to type out a text message to someone.
"Fine." Mike says, bringing his legs up and folding them beneath him. He can still see the gun sitting in the waistband of Harvey's trousers and it reminds him to stay alert.
"Danny and Trevor-- that's my friend-- had the tendency to show up at the same place at the same time, and this one time after Trevor made a deal he brought Danny back to the apartment with him." Harvey nods to show he's listening and Mike continues, "Well, I'm not sure what happened, but somehow they ended up working together. They even tried to go in on a long con together, but that wasn't going to work." Harvey lifts his attention from the phone and glances at Mike inquisitively.
"They were supposed to--" He breaks himself off and frowns, "It doesn't really matter what they were supposed to do. Basically they didn't work very well together. They're both very greedy. They're both very bad cons."
Harvey grins at him and he almost rolls his eyes for the second time that night. "And?" He prods.
"Well it fell out from underneath them, obviously. Trevor said that he cut the rope that tied them together. They didn't do business together again." Mike shrugs and then turns sheepish as he sees the gaze Harvey is throwing him.
"And?" Harvey asks again, but this time his voice has a slight edge to it. Like he's annoyed.
"We ended up with the same mark, uh, about three or four months ago? Turns out the mark was a detective. Who Danny had sold a whole suitcase of pot to."
Harvey shakes his head and puts the phone back onto the table.
"He was taken to court and got out on bail," Harvey growls under his breath, making an angry sound as he walks over to where the window is and looks out over the parking lot.
"I heard something about his lawyer blackmailing the judge." Mike replies.
"Lawyers." Harvey laughs, the sound echoing around the room. "Even I could be a lawyer."
Mike smiles at the material of Harvey's suit jacket and snorts. "Maybe you should."
Harvey turns around and grins back, and something sits heavily in the air in the time before they pick up the conversation again.
Harvey's phone beeps and vibrates, but he doesn't make a move to pick it up. He points at Mike and then drags his hand through the air, the point landing on his phone, and Mike looks at him with a laughable expression of confusion on his face. He makes an over-dramatized 'who, me?' gesture and Harvey almost chuckles again.
Mike clicks the the message button-- the sender an unknown number-- and quickly reads the message. Then he reads it again to make sure he read it right the first time.
Glaring at him from the artificial light of the screen is the message: You work for Harvey now, here is the amount you are getting, ridiculous isn't it? Enjoy your new job.
And underneath is the numerical amount of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
Mike looks from the phone to Harvey and back to the phone a couple times, gaping like a fish out of water. Harvey chuckles, the sound of it rumbling from the center of his chest, and Mike sets the phone back on the table before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. The money. He needs this money if he ever wants his grandmother to be taken care of fairly and as she needs to be. He'll do this for the money, and then he's out. He will be out and done. He doesn't care why he's being offered so much money. He only cares about getting it.
"Fine. I work for you now," he says when he finally opens his eyes, meeting Harvey's brown ones across the room, and the way he says it makes Harvey's face contort with curiosity.
"Alright then. You need to get Danny Whitfield out in the open. Call him, set up a meet, don't let him know of your recent employment. Tell him some bullshit like you want to work on a job with him," Harvey waves his hand noncommittally and strides across the room to pick up his phone and reply to the text.
"Okay. Can I go home now?" Mike asks, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and nostalgic for a familiar environment. The feeling of dolphins jumping in his stomach as he scans Harvey's body could definitely be eradicated if he had his bed beneath him and a beer in his hand. Harvey has a graceful body, one that always moves like it's supposed to, always sure of itself. It's like he doesn't even have to try. Which, Mike realizes with a start, is probably the truth.
"Why? I booked the place for a night. You aren't leaving my sight until we finish this," the other man says, looking up at him and giving him a shark-like grin. He knows it's meant jokingly but Mike can't fight the way his pants get a little tighter as he mistakes the smile as seductive.
Sighing, Mike sits at the foot of the bed and hugs his legs to his chest, forehead resting on his knees. He takes another deep breath and holds it in until he can feel the slight burning in his lungs, then releases it slowly.
It's going to be a long night. Part Two
AN: Okay, first things first. My best friend, Ashley, became my offical-like beta for this part. And without her there wouldn't even be a Part Three up right now, so. Second of all, I'm going to be in London over the next two weeks so I probably won't be posting anything during that time. I will update as soon as I get home, though. I've never posted a WIP before and so I'm trying my hardest to update regularly.
They check into the motel with no problems, unless Harvey's theme song predicament is counted.
("Why didnt he question my zip-ties?" Mike asks as he's walked through the halls and away from the lobby. Harvey's hand rests on the small of his back and the man's expression is cloudy.
"Yeah." Harvey mutters, his eyes narrowed in thought, "What was that guy humming?"
"What?" Mike asks in reply, dodging out of the way of a woman and her suitcase and she squeezes past them. She looks at them suspiciously but doesn't say anything. He can hear the padded clinking of her high heels even as they turn another a corner. If the Chilton is the highest form of safety and perfection, then the Stop 8 is the lowest.
"What was that guy humming? Come on, keep up." Harvey puts the key in the lock when they reach the room and pushes open the door, gesturing for Mike to go before him.
"Um," Mike says, because he's trying to place the tune, "The Two's Company theme song?"
"Yeah, that's it!" Harvey snaps his fingers and bobs his head, murmuring some of the words. "Thanks.")
Mike's just getting comfortable in the creaky wooden chair opposite the shaded window when Harvey places the briefcase on the table and clicks the locks open.
"Look," Mike starts, dread filling his gut, but Harvey has gone unnaturally still and so he doesn't finish the thought.
"Harvey?"
"This is weed." Harvey says slowly, his voice completely steady.
Uneasily, Mike lets out an, "uh," as Harvey curses under his breath and pulls out a cell phone. He punches in some numbers and brings it up to his ear. There's a slight pause and then his expression grows agitated.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He growls out into the receiver.
Mike can hear a high voice replying from the other end.
"No, Jessica, you gave me a junkie."
"I'm not a junkie!" Mike argues, standing up.
"Oh, you're right, I'm sorry. The fucking briefcase of marijuana is just for decoration." Harvey snarls at him, and then he points to the chair, "Sit down."
Mike sits. He hears the voice on the other end of the phone again and then Harvey asks his name.
"Mike" he says, after a brief pause. He feels like somehow Harvey would know if he were lying.
"What do you mean he's not the guy? He matched your description perfectly. Fresh-eyed, gawky," he pauses to glance at Mike, "Twitchy."
"Hey!" Mike cries out in protest, but Harvey just waves at him.
"Danny Whitfield?" Harvey says faintly, and Mike's stomach drops.
"You're looking for Danny?" He asks. He's seeing about five scenarios of where this conversation could lead him and he doesn't like the outcome of any of them.
Harvey looks at him for a long time.
"Jessica, I have to go." he hangs up, and then to Mike he says, "You know this guy?"
"He's a friend of a friend."
"Oh yeah?" Harvey asks, moving so that he's completely facing the younger man, "What friend is that?"
Mike smiles bitterly. "The one who got me into this mess," He states, letting out an agitated sigh.
"Here's what we're going to do." Harvey pulls a pocketknife from his pant's pocket and walks over to where Mike is sitting. He reaches behind him, pushes the sharp edge of the knife against the plastic and swipes, and then the pressure against Mike's wrists is gone.
Mike is rubbing at the raw area where the zip-ties had cut into his skin when Harvey pockets the knife again.
"You work for me now." Harvey inclines his head slightly, the action showing Mike that he's not going to be persuaded on this point.
Mike yelps a quick "What?" anyway.
"You heard me. Since you seem to have all of these little connections."
"No." Mike growls. He was already in a situation similar to this one just a few hours before, he's not about to be pulled into something like this again. "I don't work for anyone."
"Really?" He looks at the briefcase purposefully (Mike derives two meanings from this gesture: 1) Your ass will be on the line if you don't work for me. I have my own connections. And 2) Your friend made you their bitch, why shouldn't I?) "Because it sort of looks like you do."
"Yeah, but," Mike looks down at his freed hands, "He's my friend. It's different."
Harvey snorts and takes off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves. Mike tries not to stare at the bare skin of his upperarms for too long.
"Some friend he is, huh?" Harvey sits in the chair across from him and winces when he hears it squeak in protest. He stares at Mike for several minutes in deep thought, and under his hard gaze the younger man shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "You aren't a dealer, are you?" The way he words it makes it seem like it's not a question.
"No," Mike spits out, his anger rising. God, why is he in this situation? Why does he always get stuck in situations like this?
"Good." Harvey says, nodding. He has his phone out again and is going through it. "I'd say you're more of a scammer, myself." He looks up breifly to acknowledge the barely-there look of surprise on Mike's face and smiles. "It used to be my job to try not to get caught up in the likes of you." His tone is slightly mocking, but somehow Mike knows he's teasing.
"Oh yeah?" Mike asks, because he's honestly curious. He was just dragged forty minutes out of the city and into a motel room by some guy who screams danger and arrogance, and he can't read him like he can most people.
"I worked for the government for a while, yeah." Harvey looks above Mike's head and smiles ruefully at the wall. "It seems that I don't work well when I work for someone."
Mike rolls his eyes and struggles to keep the sarcastic really? from escaping his mouth.
Harvey comes back to himself with a blink of his eyes. He leans onto the table, making it wobble in his direction. His face is a serious mask.
"I meant it when I said you're working for me now."
Mike scowls and looks around the room, at the single bed with the chocolate on the pillow, at the mini refrigerator that's humming it's mechanical noise. At the dip in the curtains where the material bunches up against the air conditioning unit. He feels like he should be complaining more, but he won't. He's tired of trying to think of ways to get out of this situation; a dull pain has started to pound deeply behind his eyes.
"Now tell me about Danny Whitfield." Harvey orders, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs at the ankles. Mike can hear the material of his trousers sigh at the movement.
"Twenty-nine, high school drop-out, but surprisingly intelligent. He's six feet two inches and weighs roughly two hundred and fifty pounds. He has three brothers and one sister, two of which are deceased, as are his parents. When he was twenty two he was interrogated by local police for supposedly smuggling bombs, but the charges fell through. It turns out that he was smuggling drugs and other things, though.
"He's been out on bail twice before and is under suspicion of murder and treason, but the CIA is trying to keep that on the hush-hush so I'm not sure how believable it is."
Harvey interrupts him with a shake of his head and a raised hand.
"How do you know all of that? How do you know about all of his earlier charges?"
"I read it," Mike shrugs, his expression chagrined. He tugs nervously at his tie and Harvey narrows his eyes.
"You read it?" He says. His tone is the perfect example of incredulity. "Mike, that report was from seven years ago. It was completely destroyed right after it was deemed classified information. And anyone who knew about it was paid off a generous amount."
"Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious, for stating things I already know." Mike says slowly, leaning back in his chair, "I read it seven years ago. And remembered it."
Harvey's eyebrows furrow as he ignores the childish joke.
"I read things and I remember them. That's just what I do." Mike answers finally.
Between the time the first word leaves his mouth and the last word sits in the air, he wonders when he became so comfortable with letting this man know these select few things about him. He was taught from a young age that it was always better to keep his personal stuff to himself, and now not only does Harvey know that he's a con, but he probably knows exactly what his specialty is too. When did he become so trusting of strangers? Especially ones who zip-tied his wrists, dragged him to a dingy motel forty minutes outside the city, carried a gun in their waistband, and have worked for the government?
"Good job, Michael." He mutters under his breath, and when he lifts his eyes to see Harvey's raised eyebrow he coughs, slightly embarrassed, because wow, now he's talking to himself, really?
"Okay, fine. That's another bonus to you working under me." Mike swears he tries to erase the mental images that sentence gives him before they even start, but when Harvey pushes himself up and he sees the muscles of his arms move beneath the cloth of his shirt, he realizes he's fucked.
Completely fucked.
"Now, tell me everything you know about Danny that you haven't read, and I'll see what I can do," Harvey states, his voice trailing off as he begins to type out a text message to someone.
"Fine." Mike says, bringing his legs up and folding them beneath him. He can still see the gun sitting in the waistband of Harvey's trousers and it reminds him to stay alert.
"Danny and Trevor-- that's my friend-- had the tendency to show up at the same place at the same time, and this one time after Trevor made a deal he brought Danny back to the apartment with him." Harvey nods to show he's listening and Mike continues, "Well, I'm not sure what happened, but somehow they ended up working together. They even tried to go in on a long con together, but that wasn't going to work." Harvey lifts his attention from the phone and glances at Mike inquisitively.
"They were supposed to--" He breaks himself off and frowns, "It doesn't really matter what they were supposed to do. Basically they didn't work very well together. They're both very greedy. They're both very bad cons."
Harvey grins at him and he almost rolls his eyes for the second time that night. "And?" He prods.
"Well it fell out from underneath them, obviously. Trevor said that he cut the rope that tied them together. They didn't do business together again." Mike shrugs and then turns sheepish as he sees the gaze Harvey is throwing him.
"And?" Harvey asks again, but this time his voice has a slight edge to it. Like he's annoyed.
"We ended up with the same mark, uh, about three or four months ago? Turns out the mark was a detective. Who Danny had sold a whole suitcase of pot to."
Harvey shakes his head and puts the phone back onto the table.
"He was taken to court and got out on bail," Harvey growls under his breath, making an angry sound as he walks over to where the window is and looks out over the parking lot.
"I heard something about his lawyer blackmailing the judge." Mike replies.
"Lawyers." Harvey laughs, the sound echoing around the room. "Even I could be a lawyer."
Mike smiles at the material of Harvey's suit jacket and snorts. "Maybe you should."
Harvey turns around and grins back, and something sits heavily in the air in the time before they pick up the conversation again.
Harvey's phone beeps and vibrates, but he doesn't make a move to pick it up. He points at Mike and then drags his hand through the air, the point landing on his phone, and Mike looks at him with a laughable expression of confusion on his face. He makes an over-dramatized 'who, me?' gesture and Harvey almost chuckles again.
Mike clicks the the message button-- the sender an unknown number-- and quickly reads the message. Then he reads it again to make sure he read it right the first time.
Glaring at him from the artificial light of the screen is the message: You work for Harvey now, here is the amount you are getting, ridiculous isn't it? Enjoy your new job.
And underneath is the numerical amount of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.
Mike looks from the phone to Harvey and back to the phone a couple times, gaping like a fish out of water. Harvey chuckles, the sound of it rumbling from the center of his chest, and Mike sets the phone back on the table before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. The money. He needs this money if he ever wants his grandmother to be taken care of fairly and as she needs to be. He'll do this for the money, and then he's out. He will be out and done. He doesn't care why he's being offered so much money. He only cares about getting it.
"Fine. I work for you now," he says when he finally opens his eyes, meeting Harvey's brown ones across the room, and the way he says it makes Harvey's face contort with curiosity.
"Alright then. You need to get Danny Whitfield out in the open. Call him, set up a meet, don't let him know of your recent employment. Tell him some bullshit like you want to work on a job with him," Harvey waves his hand noncommittally and strides across the room to pick up his phone and reply to the text.
"Okay. Can I go home now?" Mike asks, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and nostalgic for a familiar environment. The feeling of dolphins jumping in his stomach as he scans Harvey's body could definitely be eradicated if he had his bed beneath him and a beer in his hand. Harvey has a graceful body, one that always moves like it's supposed to, always sure of itself. It's like he doesn't even have to try. Which, Mike realizes with a start, is probably the truth.
"Why? I booked the place for a night. You aren't leaving my sight until we finish this," the other man says, looking up at him and giving him a shark-like grin. He knows it's meant jokingly but Mike can't fight the way his pants get a little tighter as he mistakes the smile as seductive.
Sighing, Mike sits at the foot of the bed and hugs his legs to his chest, forehead resting on his knees. He takes another deep breath and holds it in until he can feel the slight burning in his lungs, then releases it slowly.
It's going to be a long night. Part Two