Out for drinks
I limited myself to one drink. Proud of myself, especially for a Sunday.
Didn't stop me from spilling my guts to him, though. Damn the man.
The Newsweek thing is tomorrow. Story sent to Jaz tonight. All ready for my next big media blowout. Whee.
Shouldn't have told him about Magneto. Damn him. Both of them. All of them.
And what do I do about Aaron?
12/4/2005
Logfile from Leah of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Springtime for Hitler in Germany? Autumn for Beston in Pat's pub, the chill fought back by merry company, warm heater, hot food, and cold soda. Broad-backed, hunched over the bar, the veteran Homicide detective spins Pat a tale of whimsy and woe, wide, long-fingered hands chasing the story's end with Blarney's flair. "--so she tells him, 'Boy, I've only ever met the one.' It was the first time I've ever seen a speechless lawyer."
A winter of discontent pushes Leah in the door, puffing at her fingers (bared and red like a vulture's scrawny neck) and then rubbing them on her slow walk towards the bar. She arrives to catch the end of the story on the shallow hook of her smile and swallow it down before tossing out, "Says the man who knows his way around divorce law better than any attorney he ever got to represent his bony Irish ass. Sometime, you /have/ to tell Pat how it ended with Wife Number 3 -- or was it 4? You know, with the Toyota and the passion for guava fruit."
"Elaine. Number 3. How do they all end?" asks Beston rhetorically, swinging his greying hound's head to smile at Leah. Its steady warmth couches deep in the brown eyes and blunt features, Chicago's bland accents roughened by past habits. "Women are like hurricanes. They howl when they come, and they take the house with 'em when they leave. Hey there, Leah. Pull up a stool."
"Thanks," murmurs she and suits actions to invitation, unzipping her coat on the way up and onto settled mount. "God, the weather's nasty. Finally turned, huh?"
One long, spatulate finger summons Pat's services for Leah; the bartender peels the woman a grin, warmer than his wont, and chases a cloth's swipe with the slap of a coaster. "You call this cold? You should live in Chicago for a while. Nothing between you and the North Pole but a pissed off elf or two. I'm buying," Beston decrees. "You still a whiskey girl? Warm you up inside. Not like this fizzy battery acid I'm drinking."
Leah grunts agreement, tips a piece of her smile to Pat, then huddles over the bar on folded arms. "Oh, I'm just cranky, don't mind me. The weather, the news -- the usual shit. And you can /keep/ Chicago, though go, White Sox, and all that. How've you been?"
"Pretty good," John says, smile lines deepening, webbing out from the wise, dream-dark eyes. Hands wrap around around the base of his glass, spreading fingers across the scuffed countertop: clever hands, practiced hands. "How about you? No hard feelings about the other day?"
"Doin' your job," Leah breaks off from brittle Brooklyn alto and accepts her whiskey from Pat with both chilled hands. Cupping the glass, peering into its teak depths, she sighs. "Doin' your job -- but neither of us are on the job right now, right? 'Cause I don't want to go fifteen rounds with you again. No offense, Detective."
The shaggy brows join, pitching their tent over a furrow's rue. "No offense, Ms. Canto. Nah, I'm not on the job. Look, ma." Hands fan the grey suit coat wide, showing the holster at his belt and the low bump of wallet. Amusement coarsens the mellow bass, twanging its strings. "You can pat me down for a wire if you want. --Avert your eyes, Pat. Leah's thinking of violating me."
"Since his partner won't deign to grace my bed with his glorious presence," Leah mourns and does pat him, but just his arm, with a twisted smile and cock of bronze-bright head. "Sorry, John. Just been one of those weeks. Guess who I called up and cussed out for absolutely no good reason?"
"If it was Chris, you probably had good reason," opines that loyal partner, the smile crinkling deeper before he reclaims his soda with hands and eyes. He hunches against an ephemeral cold, a solid, stolid rock of a man, coat and lap cradling his paunch. "What'd he do this time?"
Leah huffs something very like a laugh, but for the sickly rue in her eyes, and has a sip of her drink. "Made me fall in love with him, I think."
The greying head scoops, and digs a mine between stooped shoulders. "Ah," sighs Beston, and scrapes sympathy with his voice. "You sure we're talking about the same Chris? Mental midget? Clumsy? Shoots himself with his own gun?"
"'Ricochet,'" slides Leah sidelong in agreement as she knocks back a larger swallow. "I know, I know. He's descended from lemmings -- but only on his father's side, to be fair."
"His mother's something else," agrees the sage on the mountain, pausing his philosophy to sip Diet Coke. "If it didn't mean ending up Chris's stepfather, I'd off his old man and marry her myself. Her turkey is a thing of beauty, Leah. I would write poems about it, if I didn't have my dignity to think about. --Damn. I'm sorry, kid."
Leah reports, perhaps sadly, "I missed it this year. Then again, I missed being dragged along on Gabe's arm, so that's not too bad, huh? Heard it was a helluva time, as usual. He took your Aly-girl with him. You sweet on her, too?"
The detective turns his slow, sleepy smile over his upper arm at Leah. "Aly-girl. She's a funny one, isn't she? A good kid. Walking trouble," he allows, shaping dew around the curl of his hands. "The family liked her. She's riding rounds with Horschach, you hear?"
"Yup. Good for her. Her, a cop." Leah allows a bemused moment to pass in honor of that noble dream, then snorts. "Well, better her than some of us. At least she cares about people. A better future. All that crap."
"Cynical," reproaches Beston, though humorous agreement softens its edge, wry. "You turning into a hard-boiled reporter on me?"
Leah mutters, "Wasn't I always?" and eyes him with some sadness: little girl lost.
"They grow up so fast," Beston says with a small sigh: father, uncle. He nurses his drink in a hand and turns his gaze away, trailing Pat as that man putters about behind the counter. "It's a rough old world, Leah. You used to be softer."
"Used to be a lot of things, John. What's done is done."
"No going back." Regret.
Hesitation. "Probably not."
The brown eyes look. "Possibly?"
The jacketed shoulders tilt. "Anything's possible, right?"
The older man curls his mouth, an expression learned (taught) from or to his partner. Five years together shapes men even as old as Rossi and Beston. "Anything's possible," he agrees, and slides his glass across the counter in exchange for a fresh, full one. "You know I love the guy like a brother."
"A younger, stupider, shot-himself-with-his-own-gun brother," Leah supplies helpfully.
Beston laughs, fur across his basso slide into: "Poor schmuck. You heard about the Kitten thing? -- I'm just saying. I love the guy like a brother, but falling in love with him, Leah...." The greying head shakes.
Leah muses, "It might be mutual, for all I know. The way he acts-- I gave him a stuffed grey kitten, I'll have you know. How's that for love?"
"I'll have to ask him if he takes it to bed with him," says Beston, adroitly sidestepping the question of Rossi's feelings. "Anyway, I thought you had a boyfriend."
Pale eyes drop to the counter; after a breath or two, one of Leah's fingers follows them, to trace circles around her drink's coaster. "Yeah," she finally says, leaden under mica's sparkle. "I guess he is. A sweet guy. Nice." She sips. Grimaces. "Simple."
A wise, wise eye turns back to Leah. "I sound more enthusiastic about my next colonoscopy," Beston notes, heavy-footed sarcasm over amusement. "Sweet, nice, simple -- sounds like a girl's dream guy."
"Yeah, well -- compared to that partner of yours, y'know?" Leah hunches a shrug, staring moodily at the coaster and the whiskey thereupon. "I'm trying to have my cake and eat it, too. Or -- something. I dunno. Not a shrink."
"Two peas in a pod. Hey, it's a cliche, but--" Fingers sketch, divesting Beston of responsibility for the thought. "The two of you. Either of you ever heard of taking the easy road? I know the poet talks about the road less travelled, but does it have to be the one that goes over the cliff?"
Leah makes a low, unhappy noise. "I'm /already/ going over the damn cliff, John. Why not gather my rosebuds while I may?"
Beston blinks a sleepy, curious look at Leah, eyelids drooping over the lingering warmth. "Didn't you read the manual, kid? The point of being alive is to /stay/ alive. Now who's descended from lemmings?"
"And working with the Friends, right? --Oh, whoops." Leah's mouth goes ugly, and she looks hot and hard at the counter. "Now you'll drag me back into interrogation."
"You want me to?" Beston asks, gently inquiring.
Leah puts a hand over her eyes. Then -- a sharply indrawn breath, she drops her hand, she shakes her head. Finishes the whiskey. "No. But thanks for the drink."
The detective eyes the empty glass, wistful behind the deep-hollowed eyefolds. "Don't mention it. --You know, there's no future in it. With the Friends."
"Well," Leah says, "I wasn't exactly planning on the white-picket fence and 2.5 kids, anyway." But darkness tugs at her tone, and she frowns, easy with emotion's unmasking in Italianate face.
"I don't mean the longevity kind," Beston says, Irish caprice serving him in much the same way: dark, darkling, tired sorrow traced on the ledger of his face. "I mean the other sort. You're a good kid, Leah. So's Chris. I'm too old and tired to watch young people flailing around for no reason."
Leah rolls her eyes and then her head on neck's irritated ball joint. "Oh, /him./ What do I do with him? We fight, we fuck, we set each other off in every way-- There /is/ no future there, John. You're right. And yet." She jags a low chuckle. "And yet."
"Italians and their notion of fun." The fresh coke hisses into Beston's sip, clanking ice against less forgiving glass. "One of these days I'll see Chris settled down with a couple of kids. Maybe even a dog. --But I'm not talking about /him/."
Leah sighs. "What are you talking about, then? Aaron? My -- boyfriend?"
"What you're doing, Leah." Dew condenses, trickling across blunt fingernails. "The Friends."
"We've been over that." Her voice locks down; her face remasks itself. "No kidding there's no future. There's no future in anything I'm doing. Might as well drop out, move to a commune, raise goats and pot."
Beston pauses. Admits, "I can't see Chris in a commune, somehow."
Muted: "I'd be alone. Of course. Just me and the dirty hippies."
"And the goat," reminds Beston.
"I'll name him Billy," Leah promises gravely. "Because that's easy. I'll have to get a -- doe? What the hell is the female of the species?"
"What's the fun in that? Kant would approve," Beston says thoughtfully, and peers through the oracle of his glass. Dark waters. Darker future. "I'll come by, if you're growing pot. Put in an official appearance, now and again. I ever tell you I tried a little commune living?"
Leah tries to smile. "Between wives or before them?"
Beston shows his left hand, fingers splayed and bare. "Unmarried. Dating, though."
Leah gestures briefly: continue. Story!
The free, unbound hand waves a little. "No ring, but plenty of strings," Beston says with a dry curl of mouth. "Three alimony checks a month. Divorce is like an STD. You always pay for sex."
"You'd be better off with goats," Leah supposes pragmatically.
"And the pot," Beston reminds, nostalgic behind the tip of drink.
Leah wrinkles her nose. "Never done the stuff. The smell drives me batty."
"The potheads drive me batty," admits Beston. Adds, apologetic, "Even when I was one. --Chris is calling Magneto that, you hear? Keeps coming up with new names for the bastard."
Leah blinks. "He calls Magneto 'pothead'?"
Ice clinks; Beston gestures with it around his head. "That helmet he wears. Purple thing. Looks like a big tit. Pothead, Metalhead -- Pez. That's what he was calling the guy the other day. He and Chris really hit it off, sounds like."
Leah ghosts a fair impersonation of a laugh. "Oh, yeah. Sounds like him. Nice." Stops there and pokes at her drink, as if that might refill it or maybe push her, in Newtonian elegance, off her stool.
"Want another?" Beston and Pat have an understanding it seems. The hand's wave pulls the bartender over, reeled in on the end of John's line. "The way Chris told it, /I'd/ have popped his head off like a bottlecap. He's lucky Magneto had more restraint, if you can believe that. -- You should try to get an interview with him."
Shaking her head at the offer, Leah tells her glass, "Met him once."
Brown, canine eyes marvel at Leah. "No shit?"
"Well, you know, you run into all kinds of people in the park. --Shit. Don't tell him that."
No questioning who 'him' refers to. "When was this?"
Scowling, Leah retreats to her hunch. "While ago."
"What happened?"
Leah just cants a look at him: come on.
Beston's smile is a slow-warming thing, always just under the surface of his expression. "You guys sat down, had some tea, talked about the Knicks--"
"--And who knew that he's such a big fan of Larry Brown? Well, given how well-travelled the guy is -- Larry, that is, though I guess Magneto is, too..." Leah shakes her head and laughs a little, more naturally. "Just leave it, John," she says kindly. "Let's not go through interrogation again. Get my bristles all up and nasty."
"Scary," opines Beston, regarding Leah from under the eaves of brows. "Like a hedgehog. You remind me of my first wife."
Leah feigns a swoon towards him. Even bats her lashes. "Marry me?"
Beston scrubs his hand across his jaw and mouth, rubbing into the muscles. "I think Chris would kill me."
"Already asked him. Kinda." Leah lifts a shrug and the edges of a gamine grin. "He thought I was pregnant."
"Already asked--" The words burble, spilt too swiftly through the edges of a sip. Beston coughs, dribbling coke down the side of his mouth; a handy arm serves as a napkin, to the detriment of cheap suit fabric and etiquette. Admiration answers Canto chutzpah. "You asked Chris to marry you? I'll be damned. A woman with balls."
Leah says in a small voice, "I'm not sure how kidding I was."
Beston's sleepy, hangdog gaze sharpens behind its remnant chuckle. "About marrying him?" he asks, and leaves the second question unvocalized; the skip of eyes drops to her stomach, speaking for him.
"Oh, /God,/ no, not /that./" Emphasis skirls heavy in Leah's voice, dragging disgusted notes after it as if out of sadly punctured bagpipes. "I am not with child, his or anyone else's. But marrying ... well. I did propose to his sister once. Maybe that's some kind of psychological thing, huh? Projection or transference or something." Again, the grin. The glitter of protective, fragile rock.
"If you're running through the singles in the Rossi family, you probably want to stop at Chris and Julia," advises Beston, a cautionary guard lifted in one hand's palm and one brow's quiz. Needless warning, and aware of its place; it lilts across some forgotten Irish brogue, lilted rough across that humorous bass. "I hate to think it's turning into some kind of habit. One that might kill you, if you get as far as Gabe. You're /serious/."
Leah buries her head in her arms on the counter. Muffled: "I have no idea what I am. But Gabe is right out. So very out."
Beston chuckles aloud for that: heartless, entertained. "I can't see it," he admits. "You and Gabe -- couldn't see it even when Chris told me about it, and you've come a long way since then."
An eye tipped up at him, peeking over the horizon of coat's sleeve. Mournful, woeful. "Should I just tell him? Chris, I mean. Except ... I might have already. We got drunk at my place a few weeks ago. Really drunk. Pretty sure I said it then."
"You're asking me for relationship advice?" asks Beston, faintly incredulous behind the good-humored cynicism. He plants his glass like a dark-bellied lily on the counter, and molds his fingers to its bell. "/Me/? I don't know what to tell you, kid. I usually follow the 'honesty is the best policy' line. It's how I landed all three future ex-Mrs. Bestons."
Leah sighs. "Point," she grants and sits up again. "Sorry for the melodrama. Honesty. Well, I can do that, God knows. I can do that till the bloody cows come home. And then he laughs at me, but hell, he laughs at me anyway."
Beston straightens, wiping his hands on the crumple of a bar napkin. "He's got his moments. It's been a tough year. /You/ know," he adds, squinting across at Leah over the barrier of an arm. "You were there for a lot of it."
Solemnity settles around Leah, and she nods. "Yeah." Softly. "Rough time for all of us, but him ... just the Miller case alone would be enough to drive him up the wall, but he got so much else on him. So--" she sighs "--I shouldn't put this on him, too."
"On him anyway," Beston says with ruthless callousness, cheerfully consigning his partner to Dantean purgatories. "He's a born worrier. Don't worry about him. I can't speak for Chris. You do what you have to do, Leah. What's the worst that could happen?"
Leah rubs a thumbnail against her frowning brow. "He could bruise me again."
Beston creases his brow, glancing at Leah -- follows that thumbnail's line -- before deliberately turning his gaze away. The sanctity of partnership: don't ask, don't tell. "You could end up married to the putz," he says instead, determinedly cheerful. "Two point five kids, wake up every morning looking at that ugly face...."
Wryness: "He didn't beat me up, John. Just grabbed me to make a point, and I bruise easy. All this fair skin, y'know? So not Italian. I blame the Irish in my blood."
Shoulders relax a little, the barest adjustment that spends no effort in concealing itself. "Wasn't thinking that he had," Beston says, faithful to the absent Chris in word. Perhaps in thought, too, though the crooked smile he skips off his elbow betrays nothing of /them/. "You two in the same room is like lighting a cigarette in a firework factory. I figured things'd get thrown, shit would break--"
"Including me?" Leah asks, dark-eyed but smiling back.
"Or him," Beston says, dark-eyed and mirroring. "I'll stand by with the duct tape and glue."
Leah grins at that. "Come to the wedding, then."
"I'll grab the best man gig," Beston promises. He lifts his glass in a toast. "I'll even write a speech."
"Perfect. He'll hate it. And you. And me. He'll find some way to blame it on me." Leah folds her hands on the counter, composes her face, and does her best angel impression.
Beston chuckles. "I'm his partner, Leah. I'm pretty sure I'll come in for a fair share of it. Just make sure the food at the reception is good."
Leah promises, "His mom will cook. Or at least oversee everything. /Every/thing." Dawning horror at the thought. Ahem. "You do realize I'm joking."
"Why joke?" demands Beston, lifting his glass to drain it to the dregs. Ice crunches, smashed between teeth; he squeezes his face into a grimace, exhaling mist and chill. "I've been waiting /five years/ to see Chris march up the aisle. It's a character-building experience. Every man should go through it at least once. Look at me. It built up so much, I did it three times. I have character coming out my /ass/."
Unconsciously Leah leans back to check the veracity of that statement.
Beston twinkles. "Stop checking out my ass. It belongs to the Captain."
Leah holds up her hands, laughing. "And I'd never cross her! She'd make mincemeat of me." Her head ducks, and she shoots him pure devilry in gaze and grin. "Or we'd get along like a house on fire and clean /all/ you guys up right."
"You met the Cap?" Beston wonders, shaking his head over the fold of fingers. "She's a woman in a million. Half the precinct's in love with her."
"No, but I hear stories. Cops chatter like old ladies at a quilting bee, and with half my fam in the biz..." Leah shrugs back into a slouch over the bar; her fingers drum idly on the scarred, polished wood. "I try to stay out of that, though. Not /my/ biz."
Beston holds a finger up. Wags it, then points it at Leah: a gun, down which one gently sorrowful, gently smiling brown eye sights. "Your biz, Leah. It's ugly and it's dirty, but it's what we got. You bleed blue, just like the rest of us. Except maybe my blood. I got a little purple in me. Irish royalty out of Chicago."
Leah marvels, "One of the Daleys?"
The man chuckles. "One of the Bestons. You can't recognize royalty when you see it? Where's that keen reporter's eye I hear so much talk about?"
Leah pulls a sad face. "You aren't wearing a crown. Or that ineffable glow of divine approval."
"I save that for special days," Beston explains, spiraling a finger to sketch a crown. "I show up to work ineffable, I get ragged on by the guys. You know how it is."
"Yeah. Can't have the sun shining out of your ass when you're busting your hump at the computer," Leah sympathizes. "It's a burden, but you carry it well, John. Kudos."
Beston pulls a face. Noble. Effulgent. /Ineffable/. "The shit we do for the city," he sighs. "To serve and protect."
Leah pats his arm. "Keep striving. One of these days -- who knows? Apotheosis."
"Divine ascension?" Beston suggests, tilting a gaze up to the ceiling and its sooty, dark-beamed state. "Hope the weather's good. Hate getting wet. Worst thing about this freaking city, the weather."
Leah scoffs, "And Chicago is Shangri-La. Gimme a break."
"Different weather," Beston says, and raps the counter with his knuckles. "Better. Cleaner."
"Colder," Leah counters. "Nastier. Longer. I mean -- the wind alone, man. C'mon."
The finger wags again. "Keeps the perps inside, which is good enough for me. /Nothing/ keeps a New York nutbag off the streets."
Leah says simply, "We have our pride."
"New Yorkers." The detective crooks his mouth in amusement. "You're all nuts."
"And yet here you are," Leah continues in tones of wonderment, like Darwin aboard the Beagle.
Beston lifts his hands, absolving himself of choice. "Someone has to take care of you freaks." Smile lines net once more, drawn deep. "I'm watching the watchers."
Leah murmurs aslant, "Noble of you."
The detective chuffs a quiet laugh, batting the thought away with the broad plane of a hand. "It's the way of the Irish, my child. We saved the world. Might as well keep it up and running until you Italians annihilate it."
Leah sighs. "And I've got both heritages in me. What do I do, oh, what do I do?"
"Politics," Beston says, cheerfully. "You're obviously meant to be in politics."
"In my next life," Leah vows darkly. "In the meantime, I gotta train to catch. Thanks for the invite, John."
"Anytime." The brown eyes smile again, dreamy behind the rub of a hand. That same, wide-palmed hand offers itself to Leah, padded with calluses across the fingers: trigger, poolstick. "You take care of yourself, Leah. And that dumb kid I'm partnered up with."
Leah draws herself up off the stool and salutes (lacking only the dress blues -- or the funeral). "Will do," she says, sealing the handshake firmly. "Someone has to. Stupid lemming."
The dark eyes gleam. "Which one?"
Leah laughs and slaps his arm. "You take care, too." Scolding. Fond. "G'night."
The wide palm lifts in a wave, routed with the lingering gaze to follow Leah's path out. Then it is back again, to Pat and the wellspring of alcohol: panacea, anodyne, promise of oblivion. Suited elbows prop on the counter; Beston sets his chin on his fists. "Pat. Another coke?" Spin the night down, dry and dreamless.
[Log ends.]
Didn't stop me from spilling my guts to him, though. Damn the man.
The Newsweek thing is tomorrow. Story sent to Jaz tonight. All ready for my next big media blowout. Whee.
Shouldn't have told him about Magneto. Damn him. Both of them. All of them.
And what do I do about Aaron?
12/4/2005
Logfile from Leah of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Springtime for Hitler in Germany? Autumn for Beston in Pat's pub, the chill fought back by merry company, warm heater, hot food, and cold soda. Broad-backed, hunched over the bar, the veteran Homicide detective spins Pat a tale of whimsy and woe, wide, long-fingered hands chasing the story's end with Blarney's flair. "--so she tells him, 'Boy, I've only ever met the one.' It was the first time I've ever seen a speechless lawyer."
A winter of discontent pushes Leah in the door, puffing at her fingers (bared and red like a vulture's scrawny neck) and then rubbing them on her slow walk towards the bar. She arrives to catch the end of the story on the shallow hook of her smile and swallow it down before tossing out, "Says the man who knows his way around divorce law better than any attorney he ever got to represent his bony Irish ass. Sometime, you /have/ to tell Pat how it ended with Wife Number 3 -- or was it 4? You know, with the Toyota and the passion for guava fruit."
"Elaine. Number 3. How do they all end?" asks Beston rhetorically, swinging his greying hound's head to smile at Leah. Its steady warmth couches deep in the brown eyes and blunt features, Chicago's bland accents roughened by past habits. "Women are like hurricanes. They howl when they come, and they take the house with 'em when they leave. Hey there, Leah. Pull up a stool."
"Thanks," murmurs she and suits actions to invitation, unzipping her coat on the way up and onto settled mount. "God, the weather's nasty. Finally turned, huh?"
One long, spatulate finger summons Pat's services for Leah; the bartender peels the woman a grin, warmer than his wont, and chases a cloth's swipe with the slap of a coaster. "You call this cold? You should live in Chicago for a while. Nothing between you and the North Pole but a pissed off elf or two. I'm buying," Beston decrees. "You still a whiskey girl? Warm you up inside. Not like this fizzy battery acid I'm drinking."
Leah grunts agreement, tips a piece of her smile to Pat, then huddles over the bar on folded arms. "Oh, I'm just cranky, don't mind me. The weather, the news -- the usual shit. And you can /keep/ Chicago, though go, White Sox, and all that. How've you been?"
"Pretty good," John says, smile lines deepening, webbing out from the wise, dream-dark eyes. Hands wrap around around the base of his glass, spreading fingers across the scuffed countertop: clever hands, practiced hands. "How about you? No hard feelings about the other day?"
"Doin' your job," Leah breaks off from brittle Brooklyn alto and accepts her whiskey from Pat with both chilled hands. Cupping the glass, peering into its teak depths, she sighs. "Doin' your job -- but neither of us are on the job right now, right? 'Cause I don't want to go fifteen rounds with you again. No offense, Detective."
The shaggy brows join, pitching their tent over a furrow's rue. "No offense, Ms. Canto. Nah, I'm not on the job. Look, ma." Hands fan the grey suit coat wide, showing the holster at his belt and the low bump of wallet. Amusement coarsens the mellow bass, twanging its strings. "You can pat me down for a wire if you want. --Avert your eyes, Pat. Leah's thinking of violating me."
"Since his partner won't deign to grace my bed with his glorious presence," Leah mourns and does pat him, but just his arm, with a twisted smile and cock of bronze-bright head. "Sorry, John. Just been one of those weeks. Guess who I called up and cussed out for absolutely no good reason?"
"If it was Chris, you probably had good reason," opines that loyal partner, the smile crinkling deeper before he reclaims his soda with hands and eyes. He hunches against an ephemeral cold, a solid, stolid rock of a man, coat and lap cradling his paunch. "What'd he do this time?"
Leah huffs something very like a laugh, but for the sickly rue in her eyes, and has a sip of her drink. "Made me fall in love with him, I think."
The greying head scoops, and digs a mine between stooped shoulders. "Ah," sighs Beston, and scrapes sympathy with his voice. "You sure we're talking about the same Chris? Mental midget? Clumsy? Shoots himself with his own gun?"
"'Ricochet,'" slides Leah sidelong in agreement as she knocks back a larger swallow. "I know, I know. He's descended from lemmings -- but only on his father's side, to be fair."
"His mother's something else," agrees the sage on the mountain, pausing his philosophy to sip Diet Coke. "If it didn't mean ending up Chris's stepfather, I'd off his old man and marry her myself. Her turkey is a thing of beauty, Leah. I would write poems about it, if I didn't have my dignity to think about. --Damn. I'm sorry, kid."
Leah reports, perhaps sadly, "I missed it this year. Then again, I missed being dragged along on Gabe's arm, so that's not too bad, huh? Heard it was a helluva time, as usual. He took your Aly-girl with him. You sweet on her, too?"
The detective turns his slow, sleepy smile over his upper arm at Leah. "Aly-girl. She's a funny one, isn't she? A good kid. Walking trouble," he allows, shaping dew around the curl of his hands. "The family liked her. She's riding rounds with Horschach, you hear?"
"Yup. Good for her. Her, a cop." Leah allows a bemused moment to pass in honor of that noble dream, then snorts. "Well, better her than some of us. At least she cares about people. A better future. All that crap."
"Cynical," reproaches Beston, though humorous agreement softens its edge, wry. "You turning into a hard-boiled reporter on me?"
Leah mutters, "Wasn't I always?" and eyes him with some sadness: little girl lost.
"They grow up so fast," Beston says with a small sigh: father, uncle. He nurses his drink in a hand and turns his gaze away, trailing Pat as that man putters about behind the counter. "It's a rough old world, Leah. You used to be softer."
"Used to be a lot of things, John. What's done is done."
"No going back." Regret.
Hesitation. "Probably not."
The brown eyes look. "Possibly?"
The jacketed shoulders tilt. "Anything's possible, right?"
The older man curls his mouth, an expression learned (taught) from or to his partner. Five years together shapes men even as old as Rossi and Beston. "Anything's possible," he agrees, and slides his glass across the counter in exchange for a fresh, full one. "You know I love the guy like a brother."
"A younger, stupider, shot-himself-with-his-own-gun brother," Leah supplies helpfully.
Beston laughs, fur across his basso slide into: "Poor schmuck. You heard about the Kitten thing? -- I'm just saying. I love the guy like a brother, but falling in love with him, Leah...." The greying head shakes.
Leah muses, "It might be mutual, for all I know. The way he acts-- I gave him a stuffed grey kitten, I'll have you know. How's that for love?"
"I'll have to ask him if he takes it to bed with him," says Beston, adroitly sidestepping the question of Rossi's feelings. "Anyway, I thought you had a boyfriend."
Pale eyes drop to the counter; after a breath or two, one of Leah's fingers follows them, to trace circles around her drink's coaster. "Yeah," she finally says, leaden under mica's sparkle. "I guess he is. A sweet guy. Nice." She sips. Grimaces. "Simple."
A wise, wise eye turns back to Leah. "I sound more enthusiastic about my next colonoscopy," Beston notes, heavy-footed sarcasm over amusement. "Sweet, nice, simple -- sounds like a girl's dream guy."
"Yeah, well -- compared to that partner of yours, y'know?" Leah hunches a shrug, staring moodily at the coaster and the whiskey thereupon. "I'm trying to have my cake and eat it, too. Or -- something. I dunno. Not a shrink."
"Two peas in a pod. Hey, it's a cliche, but--" Fingers sketch, divesting Beston of responsibility for the thought. "The two of you. Either of you ever heard of taking the easy road? I know the poet talks about the road less travelled, but does it have to be the one that goes over the cliff?"
Leah makes a low, unhappy noise. "I'm /already/ going over the damn cliff, John. Why not gather my rosebuds while I may?"
Beston blinks a sleepy, curious look at Leah, eyelids drooping over the lingering warmth. "Didn't you read the manual, kid? The point of being alive is to /stay/ alive. Now who's descended from lemmings?"
"And working with the Friends, right? --Oh, whoops." Leah's mouth goes ugly, and she looks hot and hard at the counter. "Now you'll drag me back into interrogation."
"You want me to?" Beston asks, gently inquiring.
Leah puts a hand over her eyes. Then -- a sharply indrawn breath, she drops her hand, she shakes her head. Finishes the whiskey. "No. But thanks for the drink."
The detective eyes the empty glass, wistful behind the deep-hollowed eyefolds. "Don't mention it. --You know, there's no future in it. With the Friends."
"Well," Leah says, "I wasn't exactly planning on the white-picket fence and 2.5 kids, anyway." But darkness tugs at her tone, and she frowns, easy with emotion's unmasking in Italianate face.
"I don't mean the longevity kind," Beston says, Irish caprice serving him in much the same way: dark, darkling, tired sorrow traced on the ledger of his face. "I mean the other sort. You're a good kid, Leah. So's Chris. I'm too old and tired to watch young people flailing around for no reason."
Leah rolls her eyes and then her head on neck's irritated ball joint. "Oh, /him./ What do I do with him? We fight, we fuck, we set each other off in every way-- There /is/ no future there, John. You're right. And yet." She jags a low chuckle. "And yet."
"Italians and their notion of fun." The fresh coke hisses into Beston's sip, clanking ice against less forgiving glass. "One of these days I'll see Chris settled down with a couple of kids. Maybe even a dog. --But I'm not talking about /him/."
Leah sighs. "What are you talking about, then? Aaron? My -- boyfriend?"
"What you're doing, Leah." Dew condenses, trickling across blunt fingernails. "The Friends."
"We've been over that." Her voice locks down; her face remasks itself. "No kidding there's no future. There's no future in anything I'm doing. Might as well drop out, move to a commune, raise goats and pot."
Beston pauses. Admits, "I can't see Chris in a commune, somehow."
Muted: "I'd be alone. Of course. Just me and the dirty hippies."
"And the goat," reminds Beston.
"I'll name him Billy," Leah promises gravely. "Because that's easy. I'll have to get a -- doe? What the hell is the female of the species?"
"What's the fun in that? Kant would approve," Beston says thoughtfully, and peers through the oracle of his glass. Dark waters. Darker future. "I'll come by, if you're growing pot. Put in an official appearance, now and again. I ever tell you I tried a little commune living?"
Leah tries to smile. "Between wives or before them?"
Beston shows his left hand, fingers splayed and bare. "Unmarried. Dating, though."
Leah gestures briefly: continue. Story!
The free, unbound hand waves a little. "No ring, but plenty of strings," Beston says with a dry curl of mouth. "Three alimony checks a month. Divorce is like an STD. You always pay for sex."
"You'd be better off with goats," Leah supposes pragmatically.
"And the pot," Beston reminds, nostalgic behind the tip of drink.
Leah wrinkles her nose. "Never done the stuff. The smell drives me batty."
"The potheads drive me batty," admits Beston. Adds, apologetic, "Even when I was one. --Chris is calling Magneto that, you hear? Keeps coming up with new names for the bastard."
Leah blinks. "He calls Magneto 'pothead'?"
Ice clinks; Beston gestures with it around his head. "That helmet he wears. Purple thing. Looks like a big tit. Pothead, Metalhead -- Pez. That's what he was calling the guy the other day. He and Chris really hit it off, sounds like."
Leah ghosts a fair impersonation of a laugh. "Oh, yeah. Sounds like him. Nice." Stops there and pokes at her drink, as if that might refill it or maybe push her, in Newtonian elegance, off her stool.
"Want another?" Beston and Pat have an understanding it seems. The hand's wave pulls the bartender over, reeled in on the end of John's line. "The way Chris told it, /I'd/ have popped his head off like a bottlecap. He's lucky Magneto had more restraint, if you can believe that. -- You should try to get an interview with him."
Shaking her head at the offer, Leah tells her glass, "Met him once."
Brown, canine eyes marvel at Leah. "No shit?"
"Well, you know, you run into all kinds of people in the park. --Shit. Don't tell him that."
No questioning who 'him' refers to. "When was this?"
Scowling, Leah retreats to her hunch. "While ago."
"What happened?"
Leah just cants a look at him: come on.
Beston's smile is a slow-warming thing, always just under the surface of his expression. "You guys sat down, had some tea, talked about the Knicks--"
"--And who knew that he's such a big fan of Larry Brown? Well, given how well-travelled the guy is -- Larry, that is, though I guess Magneto is, too..." Leah shakes her head and laughs a little, more naturally. "Just leave it, John," she says kindly. "Let's not go through interrogation again. Get my bristles all up and nasty."
"Scary," opines Beston, regarding Leah from under the eaves of brows. "Like a hedgehog. You remind me of my first wife."
Leah feigns a swoon towards him. Even bats her lashes. "Marry me?"
Beston scrubs his hand across his jaw and mouth, rubbing into the muscles. "I think Chris would kill me."
"Already asked him. Kinda." Leah lifts a shrug and the edges of a gamine grin. "He thought I was pregnant."
"Already asked--" The words burble, spilt too swiftly through the edges of a sip. Beston coughs, dribbling coke down the side of his mouth; a handy arm serves as a napkin, to the detriment of cheap suit fabric and etiquette. Admiration answers Canto chutzpah. "You asked Chris to marry you? I'll be damned. A woman with balls."
Leah says in a small voice, "I'm not sure how kidding I was."
Beston's sleepy, hangdog gaze sharpens behind its remnant chuckle. "About marrying him?" he asks, and leaves the second question unvocalized; the skip of eyes drops to her stomach, speaking for him.
"Oh, /God,/ no, not /that./" Emphasis skirls heavy in Leah's voice, dragging disgusted notes after it as if out of sadly punctured bagpipes. "I am not with child, his or anyone else's. But marrying ... well. I did propose to his sister once. Maybe that's some kind of psychological thing, huh? Projection or transference or something." Again, the grin. The glitter of protective, fragile rock.
"If you're running through the singles in the Rossi family, you probably want to stop at Chris and Julia," advises Beston, a cautionary guard lifted in one hand's palm and one brow's quiz. Needless warning, and aware of its place; it lilts across some forgotten Irish brogue, lilted rough across that humorous bass. "I hate to think it's turning into some kind of habit. One that might kill you, if you get as far as Gabe. You're /serious/."
Leah buries her head in her arms on the counter. Muffled: "I have no idea what I am. But Gabe is right out. So very out."
Beston chuckles aloud for that: heartless, entertained. "I can't see it," he admits. "You and Gabe -- couldn't see it even when Chris told me about it, and you've come a long way since then."
An eye tipped up at him, peeking over the horizon of coat's sleeve. Mournful, woeful. "Should I just tell him? Chris, I mean. Except ... I might have already. We got drunk at my place a few weeks ago. Really drunk. Pretty sure I said it then."
"You're asking me for relationship advice?" asks Beston, faintly incredulous behind the good-humored cynicism. He plants his glass like a dark-bellied lily on the counter, and molds his fingers to its bell. "/Me/? I don't know what to tell you, kid. I usually follow the 'honesty is the best policy' line. It's how I landed all three future ex-Mrs. Bestons."
Leah sighs. "Point," she grants and sits up again. "Sorry for the melodrama. Honesty. Well, I can do that, God knows. I can do that till the bloody cows come home. And then he laughs at me, but hell, he laughs at me anyway."
Beston straightens, wiping his hands on the crumple of a bar napkin. "He's got his moments. It's been a tough year. /You/ know," he adds, squinting across at Leah over the barrier of an arm. "You were there for a lot of it."
Solemnity settles around Leah, and she nods. "Yeah." Softly. "Rough time for all of us, but him ... just the Miller case alone would be enough to drive him up the wall, but he got so much else on him. So--" she sighs "--I shouldn't put this on him, too."
"On him anyway," Beston says with ruthless callousness, cheerfully consigning his partner to Dantean purgatories. "He's a born worrier. Don't worry about him. I can't speak for Chris. You do what you have to do, Leah. What's the worst that could happen?"
Leah rubs a thumbnail against her frowning brow. "He could bruise me again."
Beston creases his brow, glancing at Leah -- follows that thumbnail's line -- before deliberately turning his gaze away. The sanctity of partnership: don't ask, don't tell. "You could end up married to the putz," he says instead, determinedly cheerful. "Two point five kids, wake up every morning looking at that ugly face...."
Wryness: "He didn't beat me up, John. Just grabbed me to make a point, and I bruise easy. All this fair skin, y'know? So not Italian. I blame the Irish in my blood."
Shoulders relax a little, the barest adjustment that spends no effort in concealing itself. "Wasn't thinking that he had," Beston says, faithful to the absent Chris in word. Perhaps in thought, too, though the crooked smile he skips off his elbow betrays nothing of /them/. "You two in the same room is like lighting a cigarette in a firework factory. I figured things'd get thrown, shit would break--"
"Including me?" Leah asks, dark-eyed but smiling back.
"Or him," Beston says, dark-eyed and mirroring. "I'll stand by with the duct tape and glue."
Leah grins at that. "Come to the wedding, then."
"I'll grab the best man gig," Beston promises. He lifts his glass in a toast. "I'll even write a speech."
"Perfect. He'll hate it. And you. And me. He'll find some way to blame it on me." Leah folds her hands on the counter, composes her face, and does her best angel impression.
Beston chuckles. "I'm his partner, Leah. I'm pretty sure I'll come in for a fair share of it. Just make sure the food at the reception is good."
Leah promises, "His mom will cook. Or at least oversee everything. /Every/thing." Dawning horror at the thought. Ahem. "You do realize I'm joking."
"Why joke?" demands Beston, lifting his glass to drain it to the dregs. Ice crunches, smashed between teeth; he squeezes his face into a grimace, exhaling mist and chill. "I've been waiting /five years/ to see Chris march up the aisle. It's a character-building experience. Every man should go through it at least once. Look at me. It built up so much, I did it three times. I have character coming out my /ass/."
Unconsciously Leah leans back to check the veracity of that statement.
Beston twinkles. "Stop checking out my ass. It belongs to the Captain."
Leah holds up her hands, laughing. "And I'd never cross her! She'd make mincemeat of me." Her head ducks, and she shoots him pure devilry in gaze and grin. "Or we'd get along like a house on fire and clean /all/ you guys up right."
"You met the Cap?" Beston wonders, shaking his head over the fold of fingers. "She's a woman in a million. Half the precinct's in love with her."
"No, but I hear stories. Cops chatter like old ladies at a quilting bee, and with half my fam in the biz..." Leah shrugs back into a slouch over the bar; her fingers drum idly on the scarred, polished wood. "I try to stay out of that, though. Not /my/ biz."
Beston holds a finger up. Wags it, then points it at Leah: a gun, down which one gently sorrowful, gently smiling brown eye sights. "Your biz, Leah. It's ugly and it's dirty, but it's what we got. You bleed blue, just like the rest of us. Except maybe my blood. I got a little purple in me. Irish royalty out of Chicago."
Leah marvels, "One of the Daleys?"
The man chuckles. "One of the Bestons. You can't recognize royalty when you see it? Where's that keen reporter's eye I hear so much talk about?"
Leah pulls a sad face. "You aren't wearing a crown. Or that ineffable glow of divine approval."
"I save that for special days," Beston explains, spiraling a finger to sketch a crown. "I show up to work ineffable, I get ragged on by the guys. You know how it is."
"Yeah. Can't have the sun shining out of your ass when you're busting your hump at the computer," Leah sympathizes. "It's a burden, but you carry it well, John. Kudos."
Beston pulls a face. Noble. Effulgent. /Ineffable/. "The shit we do for the city," he sighs. "To serve and protect."
Leah pats his arm. "Keep striving. One of these days -- who knows? Apotheosis."
"Divine ascension?" Beston suggests, tilting a gaze up to the ceiling and its sooty, dark-beamed state. "Hope the weather's good. Hate getting wet. Worst thing about this freaking city, the weather."
Leah scoffs, "And Chicago is Shangri-La. Gimme a break."
"Different weather," Beston says, and raps the counter with his knuckles. "Better. Cleaner."
"Colder," Leah counters. "Nastier. Longer. I mean -- the wind alone, man. C'mon."
The finger wags again. "Keeps the perps inside, which is good enough for me. /Nothing/ keeps a New York nutbag off the streets."
Leah says simply, "We have our pride."
"New Yorkers." The detective crooks his mouth in amusement. "You're all nuts."
"And yet here you are," Leah continues in tones of wonderment, like Darwin aboard the Beagle.
Beston lifts his hands, absolving himself of choice. "Someone has to take care of you freaks." Smile lines net once more, drawn deep. "I'm watching the watchers."
Leah murmurs aslant, "Noble of you."
The detective chuffs a quiet laugh, batting the thought away with the broad plane of a hand. "It's the way of the Irish, my child. We saved the world. Might as well keep it up and running until you Italians annihilate it."
Leah sighs. "And I've got both heritages in me. What do I do, oh, what do I do?"
"Politics," Beston says, cheerfully. "You're obviously meant to be in politics."
"In my next life," Leah vows darkly. "In the meantime, I gotta train to catch. Thanks for the invite, John."
"Anytime." The brown eyes smile again, dreamy behind the rub of a hand. That same, wide-palmed hand offers itself to Leah, padded with calluses across the fingers: trigger, poolstick. "You take care of yourself, Leah. And that dumb kid I'm partnered up with."
Leah draws herself up off the stool and salutes (lacking only the dress blues -- or the funeral). "Will do," she says, sealing the handshake firmly. "Someone has to. Stupid lemming."
The dark eyes gleam. "Which one?"
Leah laughs and slaps his arm. "You take care, too." Scolding. Fond. "G'night."
The wide palm lifts in a wave, routed with the lingering gaze to follow Leah's path out. Then it is back again, to Pat and the wellspring of alcohol: panacea, anodyne, promise of oblivion. Suited elbows prop on the counter; Beston sets his chin on his fists. "Pat. Another coke?" Spin the night down, dry and dreamless.
[Log ends.]