FIC: "The Man in the Mask"
FIC: "The Man in the Mask"
AUTHOR: mistressmarilyn
DATE: October 31, 2009
FANDOM: Public Enemies (2009)
PAIRING: Melvin Purvis / J. Edgar Hoover (Christian Bale and Billy Crudup)
DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'em. They're characters belonging to Bryan Burroughs, Michael Mann and Universal Studios, not to mention the respective actors of the movie, and to the ages. This is a work of a fan, done for no remuneration save the satisfaction of the work.
WARNINGS/RATING: Slashy, nothing explicit
SUMMARY: Melvin Purvis peers into the dead face of his future.
WORD COUNT: 2373
AUTHOR NOTES: For the Halloween challenge at guns_fedoras.
He held the thing in his hands, running his fingers along the raised edge of the lips and up the line of the distinctive scar. His thumb tweaked the ridge of the small mustache, creeping up the cheek to the depression of the exit wound under the eye. Here it lingered, circling the ugly gash, caressing it like an engorged labia.
All this he did unconsciously, as though completely unaware that he was holding the thing.
Melvin Purvis sat across the desk from J. Edgar Hoover in the Director's office in Washington D.C., trying to concentrate on what the man was saying about escalating the hunt for the newly announced Public Enemy Number One, Alvin Karpis. But he couldn't keep his eyes from flicking down to where Hoover's fingers worked constantly, compulsively, on the thing in his hands.
It was the death mask of John Dillinger.
Since Dillinger's death in the middle of the hottest Chicago summer on record, Hoover had been in possession of the mask, as well as several other souvenirs from the shootout. In a locked case in the anteroom of his office were the eyeglasses Dillinger had worn and the .38 caliber handgun he had carried that night, the one Purvis himself had taken from Dillinger's body. But the mask itself usually sat within arm's length on Hoover's desk, and many agents had commented on the fact it was most often in the man's lap or in his hands.
The movement of Hoover's fingers over the frozen features of John Dillinger was incredibly intimate, uncomfortably so, and Purvis was troubled by being forced to witness it. He felt like an unwilling voyeur to an act of violation, of digital assault, and it appalled him, much like the excessive interrogation techniques encouraged by the Bureau of Investigation had begun to both turn his stomach and sicken his soul.
Just a few months earlier he had watched Dillinger die, had heard him mumble something unintelligible as his life seeped out on the hot Chicago cement. No, he had done more than watch. He had triggered the attack, had fingered Dillinger for certain assassination.
Even though he hadn't fired a shot, he, Melvin Purvis, had killed John Dillinger.
It had been a moment of terror, a moment of glory, a moment he knew had damned him forever.
Now watching Hoover's thumb worry the fatal wound, his mouth was as dry as it had been that night, dry and ominously salty. He found himself forgetting to breath, stifling little gasps as Hoover continued to speak in his insistent, clipped style.
"When we finally get Karpis, I intend to be the one on the front line. I'm tired of being criticized for being 'just an administrator.' I'll show them I'm not afraid. I need to participate in the arrest myself." Hoover smiled, absently fingering one of Dillinger's eyebrows. "You can't get all the glory, Agent Purvis."
Leaning forward, Purvis was afraid he might vomit all over Hoover's favorite rug.
"Are you all right, Melvin?" Hoover asked. "You don't look well."
Purvis shook his head. "No. I'm not feeling well."
"You should have said something. We can discuss business later."
Hoover stood up, depositing the mask on the edge of his desk, just a few feet from where Purvis sat. Purvis was oblivious as Hoover walked past him toward the outer office; he just stared at the mask, imagining at any moment it might open its permanently closed eyes and wink as it twisted its silent mouth into that crooked grin.
Purvis felt the room spinning around him.
"I've explained to Miss Gandy that you won't be able to escort her to the Halloween Ball. I'm sure it's a great disappointment, considering what a hero you've turned out to be."
Trying not to read too much into the comment, Purvis nodded. He knew Hoover was unhappy with the personal notoriety he had gained because of Dillinger's demise; the Director preferred the Bureau get the credit, not any individual man. Except himself, of course. Hoover rightly believed he alone should be singled out, as the one who had organized and overseen the evolution of America's national police force. And Purvis agreed. He had no desire to steal the limelight from his boss. He believed Hoover to be a visionary and an inspired leader, despite the man's mercurial temperament and capricious favor. But it was Hoover that originally catapulted Purvis into the limelight, knowing the reporters with their revealing questions and their cameras and microphones would end up as enamored with Purvis as Hoover himself had seemed to be.
It was a little late now to push Purvis into a corner. Despite Hoover's recent attempts to diminish his authority over the Chicago office, Purvis had become a national celebrity, an immaculately dressed, well-spoken poster boy for Hoover's squad of 'G-Men.' And the Director still seemed to enjoy trying to play match-maker between his attractive secretary and the unmarried special agent. It was a game the men had played for more than two years, and Helen Gandy didn't seem to mind. It was customary for Purvis to be called to Washington for the city's annual costume ball, although in recent weeks he hadn't been sure he would be. Despite his raise and hard-earned praise after Dillinger's death, Hoover had become more critical of Purvis than ever, volleying several terse memorandums in Purvis' direction.
Purvis had hoped this trip might repair the rift that had been growing between them.
He nearly jumped when he felt Hoover's hand on his shoulder.
"Easy, Mel. You're overwrought."
"I could use a drink," Purvis admitted, wresting his attention away from the death mask on Hoover's desk.
"Does it bother you?" Hoover asked, having evidently noticed the source of his agent's angst.
"Sir?"
"The mask. You seem upset by it."
Purvis didn't answer, unable to think of anything safe to say.
"I have two," Hoover said. "Three or four were made at the morgue, and two were sent to me. This one is on record in our archive. I kept the other for my private collection."
A well-known collector, the home Hoover still shared with his mother was fast becoming a treasure-trove of trinkets and memorabilia, some of it gifts from the man who now sat in his office. Purvis had sent Hoover several collectibles and curiosities over the years of their acquaintance and had been effusively thanked for his largesse. He had enjoyed pleasing his boss, and not just because it was politic, but because it was personally satisfying. He admired the unassailable man.
But Purvis hated the thought of the Director keeping a Dillinger death mask at his home. He couldn't help imagining the thing in Hoover's private library, or, worse yet, in the man's bedroom. If he were willing to sit in his office at the Dept. of Justice holding the thing in his hands, feeling it with his naked fingers, what in the world would he do in the privacy of his own room?
"Let me take you for a drink," Hoover offered, stepping in front of Purvis, cutting off his view of the mask. "We'll go to my private apartment where you can lie down."
Purvis got shakily to his feet, soothed for a moment by the Director's hand on his sleeve, until he thought about that hand holding the mask and suffered another bout of nausea. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be led.
"You really need this," said Hoover, and Purvis focused on the jigger of whiskey in Hoover's hand, surprised to see they were already in the sitting room of the small place Hoover kept for overnight stays near the office.
"Thank you, Sir," he said, taking the drink. "Could I have a little water to chase it with?"
"Of course. Why not 'Edgar'? We're not at the office now."
It had been months since Hoover spoke in such a familiar voice, at first frustrated by the interminable time it had taken for Purvis to corner Dillinger and then irritated and even infuriated by the fame that came with his ultimate success. Purvis had begun to despair of ever being Hoover's fair-haired boy again.
"I, I . . ." Purvis found himself uncharacteristically at a loss for words.
"What a strange way to spend Halloween," Hoover mused. "I remember the parties Mother and I used to have together, making up ghost stories while she spread melted caramel on the apples from our yard. She had a wonderful tale she told about the ghost of George Washington, and how he would appear in different places around the city, leaving behind nothing but a pair of false teeth." He handed a tall tumbler of water to Purvis, who drank gratefully.
"Why don't you lie down and have a rest?" Hoover suggested. "I have several calls to make and a report to review. I'll wake you long before the witching hour."
Reluctantly Purvis retired to Hoover's bedroom, hanging his jacket on a chair and turning off the light before stretching out on his back on top of the coverlet. He closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing, wishing he could also control his thoughts. He could still see the mask, with Hoover's hands touching the lips and eyelids; he could still see Dillinger's actual face, riveted by death's repose, and there, again, were Hoover's hands, inching across the cheek, playing in the blood.
"Oh, Jesus," Purvis said, not sure if it was a prayer or a curse.
He had killed John Dillinger, and now he was allowing his visage to be violated, to be finger fucked by someone who had never come within fifty yards of the living man. The sense of guilt over the impropriety was almost paralyzing, but there was another, more nagging sensation.
It was trespass.
Hoover had no right to lay his hands on the features of John Dillinger. Only Purvis had that prerogative, had earned it by his pursuit and ultimate possession of the man, or at least of his dead body. If he hadn't shaken with fear as well as anticipation at that climactic moment, if he had boldly confronted Dillinger and proven his superior prowess, he might be better able to stand now and demand the privilege of protecting the man's memory, to claim Dillinger's mask as his own property.
In his mind, Purvis said the words he wished he had said that night. "Give it up, Johnnie! We've got you surrounded."
Why hadn't he called out? Why hadn't he tried to take the man alive?
He knew there was no answer, because there had been no alternative. Because Dillinger could not be allowed to get away again, because Dillinger would not let himself be taken, not alive at least.
Dillinger should have sensed the end was coming, probably did sense it, had been watching that damned Clark Gable movie where the gangster walks blithely to the electric chair, just minutes before his own execution.
For a moment that night at the Biograph, Purvis had believed Dillinger recognized him. But he hadn't. He couldn't have or Purvis would have seen it in those unforgettable eyes.
Those eyes had sized him up within seconds in that holding cell in Tucson, Arizona, months earlier. During their brief encounter, Dillinger had seen and remarked on Purvis' strengths -- his "qualities" -- and he had recognized his ultimate weakness. Purvis didn't really have the stomach for the work he had chosen. He had realized that long before his gut reeled at the sight of Hoover and the death mask.
Falling into a fitful sleep full of images of dead men, Melvin Purvis heard himself cursed by a man with a hole in his middle, as Pretty Boy Floyd bled out in an apple orchard. He felt himself tremble with indignation as Carter Baum's last breath blew warm on his cheek. And he saw himself mocked through iron bars by a man with no intention of staying caught, not until he was dead.
Dead Dillinger.
Dillinger's death mask.
In Hoover's hands.
Purvis sat up with a start, gasping, aware of the perspiration on his chest and face. He heard a sound across the room and saw the shadowy form approaching the bed, moving slowly and deliberately forward. Purvis wished he had kept a weapon nearby, realizing instantly how helpless he was. If Hoover's security had been breached by one of the men determined to revenge Dillinger, they were both as good as dead.
"Who's there?" Purvis said loudly.
"Just me, Melvin."
Who? The noisy sound of the blood pounding like surf in his ears made it impossible to recognize the voice.
A shaft of moonlight pierced the night's gloom and filtered through the room's one window. Purvis was looking up at a frozen face, stark white, a familiar face, the dead face of John Dillinger.
But the eyes were alive, glimmering in the moonlight!
Purvis choked back a scream.
"I've improved it, don't you think?" said Hoover from behind the mask. "I had the eyes drilled out, so it could be a real mask. What a perfect treat on Halloween!"
"My god!"
"I scared you, didn't I, Melvin? Did you think he'd come back from the grave? Did you think he was here to haunt you . . . or to kill you?"
The mask had a strange smile, a smile that might have been caused by the rictus of death or the disfigurement of heat or simply the satisfaction of the subject, having finally found a way to earn his perfect revenge on Melvin Purvis. By dying, Dillinger had won.
"Edgar, take that thing off! Now."
"Agent Purvis, don't you recognize me? I'm John Dillinger, Public Enemy Number One! I made you famous, Melvin. Don't you want to thank me?"
Shaking with something resembling rage, Purvis rose up and roughly pulled the shadowy figure down on the bed, oblivious to the shrill sound of protest and the alarm evident in the living eyes.
"Yes," Purvis said tightly, through his teeth, pinning the imposter beneath him. "I want to thank you."
And for the next fevered hour, until the clock chimed midnight on October 31, 1934, Melvin Purvis prevailed again.
One last time.
{fini}
AUTHOR: mistressmarilyn
DATE: October 31, 2009
FANDOM: Public Enemies (2009)
PAIRING: Melvin Purvis / J. Edgar Hoover (Christian Bale and Billy Crudup)
DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'em. They're characters belonging to Bryan Burroughs, Michael Mann and Universal Studios, not to mention the respective actors of the movie, and to the ages. This is a work of a fan, done for no remuneration save the satisfaction of the work.
WARNINGS/RATING: Slashy, nothing explicit
SUMMARY: Melvin Purvis peers into the dead face of his future.
WORD COUNT: 2373
AUTHOR NOTES: For the Halloween challenge at guns_fedoras.
He held the thing in his hands, running his fingers along the raised edge of the lips and up the line of the distinctive scar. His thumb tweaked the ridge of the small mustache, creeping up the cheek to the depression of the exit wound under the eye. Here it lingered, circling the ugly gash, caressing it like an engorged labia.
All this he did unconsciously, as though completely unaware that he was holding the thing.
Melvin Purvis sat across the desk from J. Edgar Hoover in the Director's office in Washington D.C., trying to concentrate on what the man was saying about escalating the hunt for the newly announced Public Enemy Number One, Alvin Karpis. But he couldn't keep his eyes from flicking down to where Hoover's fingers worked constantly, compulsively, on the thing in his hands.
It was the death mask of John Dillinger.
Since Dillinger's death in the middle of the hottest Chicago summer on record, Hoover had been in possession of the mask, as well as several other souvenirs from the shootout. In a locked case in the anteroom of his office were the eyeglasses Dillinger had worn and the .38 caliber handgun he had carried that night, the one Purvis himself had taken from Dillinger's body. But the mask itself usually sat within arm's length on Hoover's desk, and many agents had commented on the fact it was most often in the man's lap or in his hands.
The movement of Hoover's fingers over the frozen features of John Dillinger was incredibly intimate, uncomfortably so, and Purvis was troubled by being forced to witness it. He felt like an unwilling voyeur to an act of violation, of digital assault, and it appalled him, much like the excessive interrogation techniques encouraged by the Bureau of Investigation had begun to both turn his stomach and sicken his soul.
Just a few months earlier he had watched Dillinger die, had heard him mumble something unintelligible as his life seeped out on the hot Chicago cement. No, he had done more than watch. He had triggered the attack, had fingered Dillinger for certain assassination.
Even though he hadn't fired a shot, he, Melvin Purvis, had killed John Dillinger.
It had been a moment of terror, a moment of glory, a moment he knew had damned him forever.
Now watching Hoover's thumb worry the fatal wound, his mouth was as dry as it had been that night, dry and ominously salty. He found himself forgetting to breath, stifling little gasps as Hoover continued to speak in his insistent, clipped style.
"When we finally get Karpis, I intend to be the one on the front line. I'm tired of being criticized for being 'just an administrator.' I'll show them I'm not afraid. I need to participate in the arrest myself." Hoover smiled, absently fingering one of Dillinger's eyebrows. "You can't get all the glory, Agent Purvis."
Leaning forward, Purvis was afraid he might vomit all over Hoover's favorite rug.
"Are you all right, Melvin?" Hoover asked. "You don't look well."
Purvis shook his head. "No. I'm not feeling well."
"You should have said something. We can discuss business later."
Hoover stood up, depositing the mask on the edge of his desk, just a few feet from where Purvis sat. Purvis was oblivious as Hoover walked past him toward the outer office; he just stared at the mask, imagining at any moment it might open its permanently closed eyes and wink as it twisted its silent mouth into that crooked grin.
Purvis felt the room spinning around him.
"I've explained to Miss Gandy that you won't be able to escort her to the Halloween Ball. I'm sure it's a great disappointment, considering what a hero you've turned out to be."
Trying not to read too much into the comment, Purvis nodded. He knew Hoover was unhappy with the personal notoriety he had gained because of Dillinger's demise; the Director preferred the Bureau get the credit, not any individual man. Except himself, of course. Hoover rightly believed he alone should be singled out, as the one who had organized and overseen the evolution of America's national police force. And Purvis agreed. He had no desire to steal the limelight from his boss. He believed Hoover to be a visionary and an inspired leader, despite the man's mercurial temperament and capricious favor. But it was Hoover that originally catapulted Purvis into the limelight, knowing the reporters with their revealing questions and their cameras and microphones would end up as enamored with Purvis as Hoover himself had seemed to be.
It was a little late now to push Purvis into a corner. Despite Hoover's recent attempts to diminish his authority over the Chicago office, Purvis had become a national celebrity, an immaculately dressed, well-spoken poster boy for Hoover's squad of 'G-Men.' And the Director still seemed to enjoy trying to play match-maker between his attractive secretary and the unmarried special agent. It was a game the men had played for more than two years, and Helen Gandy didn't seem to mind. It was customary for Purvis to be called to Washington for the city's annual costume ball, although in recent weeks he hadn't been sure he would be. Despite his raise and hard-earned praise after Dillinger's death, Hoover had become more critical of Purvis than ever, volleying several terse memorandums in Purvis' direction.
Purvis had hoped this trip might repair the rift that had been growing between them.
He nearly jumped when he felt Hoover's hand on his shoulder.
"Easy, Mel. You're overwrought."
"I could use a drink," Purvis admitted, wresting his attention away from the death mask on Hoover's desk.
"Does it bother you?" Hoover asked, having evidently noticed the source of his agent's angst.
"Sir?"
"The mask. You seem upset by it."
Purvis didn't answer, unable to think of anything safe to say.
"I have two," Hoover said. "Three or four were made at the morgue, and two were sent to me. This one is on record in our archive. I kept the other for my private collection."
A well-known collector, the home Hoover still shared with his mother was fast becoming a treasure-trove of trinkets and memorabilia, some of it gifts from the man who now sat in his office. Purvis had sent Hoover several collectibles and curiosities over the years of their acquaintance and had been effusively thanked for his largesse. He had enjoyed pleasing his boss, and not just because it was politic, but because it was personally satisfying. He admired the unassailable man.
But Purvis hated the thought of the Director keeping a Dillinger death mask at his home. He couldn't help imagining the thing in Hoover's private library, or, worse yet, in the man's bedroom. If he were willing to sit in his office at the Dept. of Justice holding the thing in his hands, feeling it with his naked fingers, what in the world would he do in the privacy of his own room?
"Let me take you for a drink," Hoover offered, stepping in front of Purvis, cutting off his view of the mask. "We'll go to my private apartment where you can lie down."
Purvis got shakily to his feet, soothed for a moment by the Director's hand on his sleeve, until he thought about that hand holding the mask and suffered another bout of nausea. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be led.
"You really need this," said Hoover, and Purvis focused on the jigger of whiskey in Hoover's hand, surprised to see they were already in the sitting room of the small place Hoover kept for overnight stays near the office.
"Thank you, Sir," he said, taking the drink. "Could I have a little water to chase it with?"
"Of course. Why not 'Edgar'? We're not at the office now."
It had been months since Hoover spoke in such a familiar voice, at first frustrated by the interminable time it had taken for Purvis to corner Dillinger and then irritated and even infuriated by the fame that came with his ultimate success. Purvis had begun to despair of ever being Hoover's fair-haired boy again.
"I, I . . ." Purvis found himself uncharacteristically at a loss for words.
"What a strange way to spend Halloween," Hoover mused. "I remember the parties Mother and I used to have together, making up ghost stories while she spread melted caramel on the apples from our yard. She had a wonderful tale she told about the ghost of George Washington, and how he would appear in different places around the city, leaving behind nothing but a pair of false teeth." He handed a tall tumbler of water to Purvis, who drank gratefully.
"Why don't you lie down and have a rest?" Hoover suggested. "I have several calls to make and a report to review. I'll wake you long before the witching hour."
Reluctantly Purvis retired to Hoover's bedroom, hanging his jacket on a chair and turning off the light before stretching out on his back on top of the coverlet. He closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing, wishing he could also control his thoughts. He could still see the mask, with Hoover's hands touching the lips and eyelids; he could still see Dillinger's actual face, riveted by death's repose, and there, again, were Hoover's hands, inching across the cheek, playing in the blood.
"Oh, Jesus," Purvis said, not sure if it was a prayer or a curse.
He had killed John Dillinger, and now he was allowing his visage to be violated, to be finger fucked by someone who had never come within fifty yards of the living man. The sense of guilt over the impropriety was almost paralyzing, but there was another, more nagging sensation.
It was trespass.
Hoover had no right to lay his hands on the features of John Dillinger. Only Purvis had that prerogative, had earned it by his pursuit and ultimate possession of the man, or at least of his dead body. If he hadn't shaken with fear as well as anticipation at that climactic moment, if he had boldly confronted Dillinger and proven his superior prowess, he might be better able to stand now and demand the privilege of protecting the man's memory, to claim Dillinger's mask as his own property.
In his mind, Purvis said the words he wished he had said that night. "Give it up, Johnnie! We've got you surrounded."
Why hadn't he called out? Why hadn't he tried to take the man alive?
He knew there was no answer, because there had been no alternative. Because Dillinger could not be allowed to get away again, because Dillinger would not let himself be taken, not alive at least.
Dillinger should have sensed the end was coming, probably did sense it, had been watching that damned Clark Gable movie where the gangster walks blithely to the electric chair, just minutes before his own execution.
For a moment that night at the Biograph, Purvis had believed Dillinger recognized him. But he hadn't. He couldn't have or Purvis would have seen it in those unforgettable eyes.
Those eyes had sized him up within seconds in that holding cell in Tucson, Arizona, months earlier. During their brief encounter, Dillinger had seen and remarked on Purvis' strengths -- his "qualities" -- and he had recognized his ultimate weakness. Purvis didn't really have the stomach for the work he had chosen. He had realized that long before his gut reeled at the sight of Hoover and the death mask.
Falling into a fitful sleep full of images of dead men, Melvin Purvis heard himself cursed by a man with a hole in his middle, as Pretty Boy Floyd bled out in an apple orchard. He felt himself tremble with indignation as Carter Baum's last breath blew warm on his cheek. And he saw himself mocked through iron bars by a man with no intention of staying caught, not until he was dead.
Dead Dillinger.
Dillinger's death mask.
In Hoover's hands.
Purvis sat up with a start, gasping, aware of the perspiration on his chest and face. He heard a sound across the room and saw the shadowy form approaching the bed, moving slowly and deliberately forward. Purvis wished he had kept a weapon nearby, realizing instantly how helpless he was. If Hoover's security had been breached by one of the men determined to revenge Dillinger, they were both as good as dead.
"Who's there?" Purvis said loudly.
"Just me, Melvin."
Who? The noisy sound of the blood pounding like surf in his ears made it impossible to recognize the voice.
A shaft of moonlight pierced the night's gloom and filtered through the room's one window. Purvis was looking up at a frozen face, stark white, a familiar face, the dead face of John Dillinger.
But the eyes were alive, glimmering in the moonlight!
Purvis choked back a scream.
"I've improved it, don't you think?" said Hoover from behind the mask. "I had the eyes drilled out, so it could be a real mask. What a perfect treat on Halloween!"
"My god!"
"I scared you, didn't I, Melvin? Did you think he'd come back from the grave? Did you think he was here to haunt you . . . or to kill you?"
The mask had a strange smile, a smile that might have been caused by the rictus of death or the disfigurement of heat or simply the satisfaction of the subject, having finally found a way to earn his perfect revenge on Melvin Purvis. By dying, Dillinger had won.
"Edgar, take that thing off! Now."
"Agent Purvis, don't you recognize me? I'm John Dillinger, Public Enemy Number One! I made you famous, Melvin. Don't you want to thank me?"
Shaking with something resembling rage, Purvis rose up and roughly pulled the shadowy figure down on the bed, oblivious to the shrill sound of protest and the alarm evident in the living eyes.
"Yes," Purvis said tightly, through his teeth, pinning the imposter beneath him. "I want to thank you."
And for the next fevered hour, until the clock chimed midnight on October 31, 1934, Melvin Purvis prevailed again.
One last time.
{fini}