9/8/06 - Mystique
---
Temper sends Rossi on a hard, fast pace through the sidewalks, the broad shoulders pushing through pedestrian traffic with a native's indifference to the convenience of others. Curses follow him. Taper. Fall behind.
They are ignored, as they should be: he is New York's Finest. Well.
It is in a bolthole that he finds refuge at last, anger chipped and rendered into dust in the background of the weekend. A quiet bar -- a miracle of a finding on a Friday night -- serves as his sanctuary; suit coat removed, seated on a bar stool, he nurses a beer and argues with the bartender over some long-past game. "--you fucking kidding me? The /Sox/?"
From the back of the bar, a brunette appears, with dark curls that dance around her face and end just above her shoulders, brushing bare skin revealed by straps that take advantage of the last waning days of summer. Her skin is dusky, curves generous, jeans slung low and comfortable. Her expression is disappointment, eyes dark and faintly irritated as she pulls up a seat along the bar, several stools down from Rossi.
The bartender's argument, eloquent, is both graphic and anatomically unlikely. Rossi flashes even, white teeth in a grin that lights his face. "Screw you, too," he tells the bartender's back, already turned to him in pursuit of newer patronage.
A coaster slaps down on the counter before the brunette. A meaty elbow leans into the counter. "What'll you have?"
"Vodka and sprite," the brunette requests in a husky alto, followed by a low laugh. "Just one though, huh? I think I'm drinking alone tonight. Unless you've got any specials going on?"
"I got this asshole over here," the bartender says with a companionable grin, tipping a spatulate thumb at Rossi before turning away to work through bottles and cans. "He's got a mouth on him, but he's a cop so you know you'll go home safe, at least."
The detective indicated, leaned into his own elbows, cuts a glance over his upper arm and lifts his head in puzzled acknowledgment of the gesture. "What?"
The brunette turns her gaze down the bar to Rossi and her laugh lifts higher. "I think the bartender is trying to sell you," she suggests, jerking her head up in a nod that sends curls dancing. "You're a cop?"
"New York's Finest," Rossi replies, a finger flicking off the hand's curl over sleeve to make an obscene counter to the bartender's look. The other man grins again, placing the ordered drink on the coaster before wandering away. The detective hunches a shrug. "Out of the one-nine. Ignore Joe. He's got this whole fat Cupid thing going. You?"
The brunette shifts to face Rossi, legs crossing neatly as she leans sidways into the bar for her drink. "Me? I'm not a cop!" Generous laughter tumbles free again as she shakes her head. "Have an uncle in the force, in Albany. I teach dance."
Rossi's gaze travels down south, following the trails that lead who-knows-where down the length of legs and then back again. "I bet," he says, though there is masculine appreciation in his voice and eyes, swift to kindle and unabashed. "What kind of dance?"
"Salsa," she laughs, gaze patient in its wait for Rossi's eyes to meet hers again. "I used to do ballet, when I younger, but--" An explaining hand sweeps down as she finishes, "I'm not built for it. You on the job now?"
The hand curled the beer lifts, drenching fingers in amber light. "Drinking," Rossi says, tipping his head towards the busy bartender, "means I'm off the clock. My time's my own from now until two p.m. tomorrow afternoon, when I belong to the grateful citizens of New York City again."
The brunette lifts her glass in amused toast. "Grateful citizens," she echoes, smiling, and slides from her barstool to cross the distance of a pair of barstools. She tips her head toward the seat next to Rossi and asks, "You mind company? My girlfriends abandoned me tonight."
"Dumped by chicks," Rossi sympathizes into his glass, the smile that warms in his voice absent from the grave profile. He shrugs his indifference, only to erase it with an invitating sweep of hand. "Go for it. Knock yourself out. Only person keeping me company tonight is Joe, and I'm just not into man-boobs the way I used to be."
She considers indifference with an observant gaze, lit warm brown while she settles onto the stool next to him. "Aw, c'mon. I think you don't do Joe enough credit," she teases before she leans forward and leaves the joke to fall flat. "So. Are you the kinda cop who likes to talk about what he does, or the kind who wants me to leave it alone and find something else to talk about?"
Eyebrows lift. Cynicism darts quicksilver behind the hooded gaze. "Depends," Rossi drawls back, Brooklyn's laces bright in the baritone. "You the type who likes cops to talk about what they do, or the kind who just wants to talk about something else? Rossi," he adds, sliding his hand out from beneath the bridge of arm. "Chris Rossi."
"Maria," the brunette offers, settling her hand warm and firm in his. Her gaze on him is considering, momentarily silent. "You're something, huh?" she finally determines.
Wariness cuts a quick glance back at the woman, the hard-hewn mask of face stiffening for a split second. "Real piece of work, I'm told," Rossi says lightly enough, a heavy brow lifting. "What gives it away?"
"You look like I'm about to eat you," Maria returns easily. "Maybe stab a knife between your shoulderblades." She holds a hand up, open-palmed toward Rossi, and vows, "Not my style, honest."
Rossi looks at the hand. Looks at Maria. Grins, then -- or grimaces, rather -- a twist to the mouth that draws away the shadows that press like thumbprints in the eyes. "Sorry," he says, and sounds like he means it. The broad frame straightens. "Haven't been what you'd call /lucky/ with the sane women lately. I'll take your word for it. Nice to meet you, Maria."
Maria drops the hand to settle flat atop one thigh and leans forward just slightly with a smile. "If I'm going to stab a man," she imparts, like a hushed secret, "I'll do it where he can see. Really, though, I find knives to be problematic."
"That," Rossi says with a native New Yorker's approval, "I can respect. Here's to the ones you see coming." His beer lifts, hiked in arbitrary salute and toast to their reflections behind the bar. "And," he finishes, the glass touching his lower lip, "to the people too stupid to get out of the way."
Maria breaks into laughter, deep and genuine, and she obediently lifts her glass in a toast. Dark eyes linger on Rossi's gesture, tracing over scarred hands, and then lift to fix on him. "Too stupid, huh? Never think they just don't move fast enough?"
Rossi's mouth thins, briefly moistened by beer. "The ones I'm thinking of," he says, gaze slicing askance again, "wouldn't make a difference. If you're too dumb not to walk into it to begin with, /fast/ isn't your problem. Ever hear of the Darwin awards, Maria? You are living in one of God's great examples to the human race. New York City."
"Everyone deserves what they get, then?" Maria's head tips slightly, dark hair tumbling forward over one shoulder, and she lifts her glass for a slow sip.
"Nah." Rossi tips back his drink again, throat working over a swallow. Two. "--But," he continues then, as though never interrupted, "some people you just can't help. What's the business like, teaching dancing?"
"Some people? Who can you help, then?" Maria continues likewise, fingers wrapped neatly around her glass.
Rossi arches a brow at Maria. "Everyone else. You get into dancing on purpose? I used to date a dancer. Well, saw a dancer. Well." Eyes roll up, sketching a prayer to an absent God. "Slept with one. Or two."
"Ah." Maria appears to make some sort of decision with that single, soft noise, and she turns toward the bar to lean forward on her elbows. "Yes, I got into it on purpose. I enjoying knowing what to do with my body." It's a statement of fact, lacking flirtatious tone or smile.
The glance Rossi returns to Maria is quizzical: even understanding. "Yeah," he says, with surprise pinning down the lighter reply. "I get that. Guy who can control himself's hard to beat. Or woman," he amends, with a concession to the weaker sex. "You been doing it long?"
"Years," Maria confirms with a small smile directed down at her drink. Mystery. "Do you dance?" she asks after a moment, lifting her eyes back to Rossi.
"Time to time," Rossi admits, straight-faced into the confessional of his glass. His profile is a thing of rulers and marble, chiseled out of stone according to a more ancient model of masculine beauty. Roman. He looks at Maria's doppelganger in the mirror and says, "In the living room. Sometimes even with actual music. I got a really mean conga step that works great when I'm making linguini."
"Do you make everything about violence?" Maria wonders next, watching Rossi full-on as he considers the mirror. A hand sneaks up, flickering motion, to slide a dark curl behind her ear.
Eyebrows lift, turning curiosity back at Maria. "Only if you've know what actual dancing's supposed to look like," Rossi retorts. Dry humor slithers under the accent, trawling for vowels. "I'm pretty bad. What's that got to do with violence?"
"Guy who can control himself's hard to beat," Maria mimicks, timing and tone an exact echo of earlier words. She lifts her glass and tips it toward him in indication and then raises it for a drink.
A grin in earnest this time, a flash of pure amusement. "You're the one reading violence in it. Not me. Hard to beat," Rossi clarifies, and flicks a fingernail against the bell of his glass. It chimes thickly, ill-tuned to perform. "In a class by himself. Got nothing to do with pounding on him."
Maria dips her head ruefully and allows, "Maybe."
"Thinking with your muscles," Rossi says, and the grin shifts, becoming something more resigned, self-mocking. "Get into the habit and sometimes it's hard to break out."
"Does that get you into trouble then, Ch--" Maria pauses and turns toward him, abruptly curious. "Do you rather Chris, or Rossi?"
The shoulders shrug; when they settle, it is to a more relaxed slant than before. "Either one," Rossi admits, and lowers his glass to tap on the counter. Refills. His glance skips to Maria's drink, measuring. "You want another one? I'll buy. --Cops call me Rossi. Friends call me Chris. Or asshat. I'll answer to all three."
"Asshat?" Maria's laugh sounds again, low and rumbling, and she glances down to her drink. Considering. The moment's silence is a bit longer than perhaps it needs to be before she allows, "Sure, why not? I'll get the next round." Her fingers tap against her glass as she explains, "I figured, about the cops and the Rossi. That's how you introduced yourself, though. Thought you might prefer it."
"Off the clock," Rossi remembers, and swings his gaze around the bar, twisting to take in the rest of the patrons. Looking for the criminal in the room -- he refocuses on Mystique. Again, the twist of lips. "Out of the courthouse," he elaborates, lifting a hand's summons to the bartender. "Spent the last few hours on the witness stand. Takes a while to get the stink of our proud judicial system out of my clothes. Thanks for asking, though."
The criminal in the room lifts her brows as the bartender lumbers near. "Hell. Doing what?"
Rossi cants his head to Maria's glass as well. Joe obliges. "Witnessing." A succinct enough reply to cover the case. He scrubs a knuckle across his jaw and rubs it hard against the bristle-touched throat. "All part of the proud blue package. One of the perks of the job."
"Well. Imagine that." Maria's dry reply notes the succinct, acknowledges the vague, and leaves it to sit while she drains the last of her glass. "So the conga. Where'd you pick that one up? Not the station, surely?"
"Where'd you pick up salsa?" Rossi asks, shifting in thanks for the bartender's refill. Joe moves away with the dignity of the overweight, a massive float behind his bar. "You pick that up in ballet class?"
"Oh, neat sidestep," Maria approves with lowly rumbling amusement as she pulls her refilled glass toward her. "Family thing. I started taking classes in high school."
Rossi wraps his hand around the fresh glass, the heat from his fingers fogging through condensation. "Ballroom dance class in college," he replies, other hand steepling over the mouth of his beer. "I was dating this girl, she needed a partner-- took six classes and then broke up with her."
"Dropped the girl, kept the dance," Maria approves, and lifts her glass to drink to it.
"Ugly," Rossi tells the dance teacher, wry. "Same class for the rest of the semester? Sucked ass. Couldn't lose the credits."
"Probably ought to work on that timing thing," Maria agrees, and one nimble foot taps against the bar.
Rossi tells that tapping foot, "Some people, you just can't save." The Darwin Awards receive a solemn, if silent toast. And then back, quizzical, "Family thing?"
Maria turns to face Rossi more fully and blinks at him. "What," she asks bluntly. "You get somebody killed or something?"
"Again with the violence," Rossi marvels, brows twitching together. He fists his temple, head resting on the bulwark of his forearm. "What the hell're you talking about?"
Maria watches Rossi in silence, brows pulled together, and rests her glass lightly against the span of her thigh.
Silence meets more puzzled silence. Rossi watches back, caution hooking into the edges of his expression before he turns back to his drink, spine and shoulders set under the prickle of attention.
Maria's smile spreads slowly. "I mean," she continues, as if no silence had existed. "You've been a cop for awhile, right? You've at least seen people die."
There is more silence, but it is a tighter, fine-strung silence now, plucked like a guitar string and set to humming. Rossi drinks his beer. "Yeah," he'll concede. "I'm on Homicide and MA."
"Cops?" Maria prompts, strumming the tension with a deft sense of careless curiousity.
The line of Rossi's cheek pares fine, betraying the stitch of muscle in the jaw. "Three days from September 11th," he says, baritone burring harsh mockery, "You wanna ask me /that/?"
Heedless, careless, Maria dismisses Rossi with a flick of her fingers over her drink. "That's not what I mean. I mean, /seen/ them. Right? Friends?"
"What's your point?"
Maria raises spread palms. "I'm just curious. Jerry - my uncle - never will say."
"Maybe it's not something he wants to talk about," Rossi suggests, without subtlety. His head tips. "You seen people die?"
Maria smiles. "Yes."
"And?"
"What would you like to know?"
Rossi's brow furrows. The drink is forgotten. "Why's it matter if I've seen cops die?"
"Or friends," Maria reminds. "I'm curious."
Rossi falls silent again. The beer, remembered, receives the brunt of his blank and thoughtful stare.
"I have always thought," Maria continues in the face of silence. "That how a man reacts to death says a good deal about his character. Don't you think?"
"I've always thought," Rossi counters, lifting his beer to his lips, "That how a man reacts to life says a lot more. Dying's easy. Living's the pain."
"Reacting to death," Maria reminds, "Is not the same as dying."
The cop glances aside to Maria. "Not the same," he says frankly. "But pretty damn close. Everybody dies. You see someone die up close, it's odds to evens you're remembering it could just as easily be you."
"Ah." Maria breathes the single sound again as if something vital has been revealed about her companion, and she dips her head for a concentrated drink.
There is a small pause while Rossi reads oracles in his drink. A callused knuckle sketches a face in the glass. Condensation pools at the bottom of an eye, trickling down in false tears. "Trade you," he says at last, the words light: the voice not. "Who'd you see die?"
"Recently?"
"How many people you seen die?"
Maria pauses. She considers, head tipped slightly away from Rossi. Eventually she looks back to him with a smile. "I don't recall."
Nails scratch at a cheek, stubble rasping under the climb of brows. "That many? Or that forgettable?"
"In some instances, both."
"That's some dance studio you're running there," Rossi says.
One shoulder tilts up, an easily dismissive gesture, and Maria smiles into her drink.
The beer is halfway gone, and the bartender answers the halfway mark, a spot-check cruising over Rossi's drink before moving on to Maria's. "Another?" Joe asks, slinging a dish towel over his shoulder.
Rossi sits in silence, some febrile, physical awareness waking in the relaxed frame.
"On me this time," Maria confirms.
Joe is agreeable, casting a quick glance at Rossi to check for refusal before going to work with the tap and bottles. "First dead body," Chris tells Maria, stirring in his seat to hook his elbow over his knee. "Age four. Uncle Jimmy. Friend of my dad's, out of the two-seven. Got shot heading home from shift. Wasn't even on duty. Went to his funeral and his widow gave us cake."
"And the last?" Maria prompts as her elbows find the edge of the bar again and her gaze slips after the agreeable Joe.
"Something for something," Rossi says, turning back to the bar to polish off the last of his beer. A nearby bowl of peanuts is spun towards Maria, set in a frisbee twirl between them before it bumps to a halt against his arm.
"Seven. A homeless man, frozen in the street in January," Maria returns without hesitation. She smiles her thanks and stretches out to steal a handfull of peanuts.
There are napkins behind the bar, hoarded in a reserve. Rossi drags himself up on the stool, straightening to his full height to lean over the counter. "Seventeen year old kid," he says in a muffled voice, a hand filling with napkins before he retreats back to his seat. "Three day old suicide. Did herself with pills and her parents didn't notice until the smell started."
Maria watches Rossi's movements with a sharp eye, critically observant. "A scientist," she answers honestly. "Stabbed, I believe."
There's surprise in the kick of glance Rossi turns to her, green of stained-glass clarity rimmed around by white and black. "What the fuck?" he puzzles. "How'd you end up seeing that?"
"I was there to collect some information," Maria answers, meeting green with deep brown. "How many people have /you/ seen die?"
Rossi's frown deepens. "What kind of information does a--" he begins, only to break off into a brush of fingers to eyehollows. The thumb and knuckle pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Damned if I know. Seen die, not so many. Seen dead, plenty. 9/11--" Another scissored interruption in the baritone. His hand falls away; the thinned mouth curls in a humorless smile. "Saw a lot that day."
"And homicide," Maria acknowledges with a slight lean toward Rossi and bright-sharp eyes that watch the fall of that hand.
"Homicide means they're already dead," Rossi reminds, shoulders settling over the body's deliberate distribution over the stool. Like many active men, when he chooses to settle, he does so without respect for space, limbs sprawling to boneless entropy. "Seen a few vics on their way."
"And Uncle Jimmy." Maria adjusts to Rossi's sprawl with thoughtless ease, a dancer's grace as she shifts on her barstool. "How many not related to your job?"
Rossi's eyes shutter, hiding themselves behind the veil of eyelids and long, feminine lashes. "A few," he says, laconic enough to make the answer meaningless. "Everybody dies, princess."
"A few," Maria murmurs. She smiles, and lifts her glass it toast to the many few.
"Enough," Rossi amends, his own glass untouched. His foot hooks its heel in the battered rungs of the stool, legs straddled wide. An elbow folds over the back of the chair to fist his head again, heavy and tousled. "That whole dignity of death thing? Bullshit."
"Few men die with dignity."
"No man dies with dignity."
"You have seen every man die?" Maria shakes her head and leans back, glass left atop the counter. "Some do. Few. But there are those who meet their death well."
"You've seen a lot of guys die, then?" Rossi asks, attention a sharp and glittering thing: like diamonds, like shards of glass.
Maria, succinct, replies: "Enough."
"How many's enough?"
Maria faces Rossi with slowly lifting brows. "I don't recall," she reminds patiently.
"Enough to see men die with dignity," Rossi points out, and then quirks his mouth into a ghost of a ... something. A smile. Or not. "Enough to say /few/, even though I'm saying none."
Maria's expression shows something like fascination as she watches Rossi. "Are you on the clock now, detective?" she wonders.
Rossi's glance to his watch is telling, as much as the rueful realization that spits across his expression. "Off the clock," he admits. "Guess I'm not off the job. Hard to do. Used to being a cop."
"It is a consuming job."
"Habit," Rossi says, and smiles without his eyes. "You're not the usual type of dancer I run into."
"Aren't I?" Maria's smile is full and pleased, entirely.
"The ones I meet are more interested in getting my clothes off. Or theirs."
"Would you be more comfortable if I were trying to seduce you?"
Rossi considers Maria thoughtfully, a measure of professional interest alert behind the inspection. "Pass," he decides at last. "I don't need that kind of complication."
"The complication," Maria wonders bluntly, "Of sex? Or me?"
Amusement. "Both." Bluntness in return for bluntness. "Death isn't one of those things I talk about with my one night stands."
"Why not?"
"Complications." Rossi reaches for a peanut, and grins suddenly for no reason whatsoever. Memory moves like a hand across the face. "I'm not interested in death when I'm jumping into bed with someone."
"You have it quite backwards. It's death that often makes us interested in jumping into bed with someone."
Rossi's glance is sharp through the fading traces of that swift warmth. "Maybe," he grants, "but it isn't her life or her religion I want, if you get my drift. One body, no strings."
Maria shifts, sliding from her stool to settle her weight on the balls of her feet and stepping back with a graceful motion. A dancer's move. A fighter's move. "There are always strings, Christopher."
"Yeah," Rossi admits, watching that rise with an assessing eye, his own body stirring to an elusive physical echo that doesn't quite materialize. "Maybe. But that piper, I can pay." Green eyes flicker, abruptly self-mocking. "Mostly."
"Mostly," Maria confirms, and smiles deeply as she turns toward the door. "Thanks for the drinks, detective."
Rossi's chin lifts after her, a salute that serves as farewell and acknowledgment both. Brooklyn. "You too," he returns, and turns back to the bar. Beer three. Joe's questioning brow prompts a raised finger. Keep them coming.
Three days to go.
[Log ends]
Rossi spends the night in a bar, with a woman. They talk about death. They do not flirt. It is all very odd and strange and disconcerting.
Temper sends Rossi on a hard, fast pace through the sidewalks, the broad shoulders pushing through pedestrian traffic with a native's indifference to the convenience of others. Curses follow him. Taper. Fall behind.
They are ignored, as they should be: he is New York's Finest. Well.
It is in a bolthole that he finds refuge at last, anger chipped and rendered into dust in the background of the weekend. A quiet bar -- a miracle of a finding on a Friday night -- serves as his sanctuary; suit coat removed, seated on a bar stool, he nurses a beer and argues with the bartender over some long-past game. "--you fucking kidding me? The /Sox/?"
From the back of the bar, a brunette appears, with dark curls that dance around her face and end just above her shoulders, brushing bare skin revealed by straps that take advantage of the last waning days of summer. Her skin is dusky, curves generous, jeans slung low and comfortable. Her expression is disappointment, eyes dark and faintly irritated as she pulls up a seat along the bar, several stools down from Rossi.
The bartender's argument, eloquent, is both graphic and anatomically unlikely. Rossi flashes even, white teeth in a grin that lights his face. "Screw you, too," he tells the bartender's back, already turned to him in pursuit of newer patronage.
A coaster slaps down on the counter before the brunette. A meaty elbow leans into the counter. "What'll you have?"
"Vodka and sprite," the brunette requests in a husky alto, followed by a low laugh. "Just one though, huh? I think I'm drinking alone tonight. Unless you've got any specials going on?"
"I got this asshole over here," the bartender says with a companionable grin, tipping a spatulate thumb at Rossi before turning away to work through bottles and cans. "He's got a mouth on him, but he's a cop so you know you'll go home safe, at least."
The detective indicated, leaned into his own elbows, cuts a glance over his upper arm and lifts his head in puzzled acknowledgment of the gesture. "What?"
The brunette turns her gaze down the bar to Rossi and her laugh lifts higher. "I think the bartender is trying to sell you," she suggests, jerking her head up in a nod that sends curls dancing. "You're a cop?"
"New York's Finest," Rossi replies, a finger flicking off the hand's curl over sleeve to make an obscene counter to the bartender's look. The other man grins again, placing the ordered drink on the coaster before wandering away. The detective hunches a shrug. "Out of the one-nine. Ignore Joe. He's got this whole fat Cupid thing going. You?"
The brunette shifts to face Rossi, legs crossing neatly as she leans sidways into the bar for her drink. "Me? I'm not a cop!" Generous laughter tumbles free again as she shakes her head. "Have an uncle in the force, in Albany. I teach dance."
Rossi's gaze travels down south, following the trails that lead who-knows-where down the length of legs and then back again. "I bet," he says, though there is masculine appreciation in his voice and eyes, swift to kindle and unabashed. "What kind of dance?"
"Salsa," she laughs, gaze patient in its wait for Rossi's eyes to meet hers again. "I used to do ballet, when I younger, but--" An explaining hand sweeps down as she finishes, "I'm not built for it. You on the job now?"
The hand curled the beer lifts, drenching fingers in amber light. "Drinking," Rossi says, tipping his head towards the busy bartender, "means I'm off the clock. My time's my own from now until two p.m. tomorrow afternoon, when I belong to the grateful citizens of New York City again."
The brunette lifts her glass in amused toast. "Grateful citizens," she echoes, smiling, and slides from her barstool to cross the distance of a pair of barstools. She tips her head toward the seat next to Rossi and asks, "You mind company? My girlfriends abandoned me tonight."
"Dumped by chicks," Rossi sympathizes into his glass, the smile that warms in his voice absent from the grave profile. He shrugs his indifference, only to erase it with an invitating sweep of hand. "Go for it. Knock yourself out. Only person keeping me company tonight is Joe, and I'm just not into man-boobs the way I used to be."
She considers indifference with an observant gaze, lit warm brown while she settles onto the stool next to him. "Aw, c'mon. I think you don't do Joe enough credit," she teases before she leans forward and leaves the joke to fall flat. "So. Are you the kinda cop who likes to talk about what he does, or the kind who wants me to leave it alone and find something else to talk about?"
Eyebrows lift. Cynicism darts quicksilver behind the hooded gaze. "Depends," Rossi drawls back, Brooklyn's laces bright in the baritone. "You the type who likes cops to talk about what they do, or the kind who just wants to talk about something else? Rossi," he adds, sliding his hand out from beneath the bridge of arm. "Chris Rossi."
"Maria," the brunette offers, settling her hand warm and firm in his. Her gaze on him is considering, momentarily silent. "You're something, huh?" she finally determines.
Wariness cuts a quick glance back at the woman, the hard-hewn mask of face stiffening for a split second. "Real piece of work, I'm told," Rossi says lightly enough, a heavy brow lifting. "What gives it away?"
"You look like I'm about to eat you," Maria returns easily. "Maybe stab a knife between your shoulderblades." She holds a hand up, open-palmed toward Rossi, and vows, "Not my style, honest."
Rossi looks at the hand. Looks at Maria. Grins, then -- or grimaces, rather -- a twist to the mouth that draws away the shadows that press like thumbprints in the eyes. "Sorry," he says, and sounds like he means it. The broad frame straightens. "Haven't been what you'd call /lucky/ with the sane women lately. I'll take your word for it. Nice to meet you, Maria."
Maria drops the hand to settle flat atop one thigh and leans forward just slightly with a smile. "If I'm going to stab a man," she imparts, like a hushed secret, "I'll do it where he can see. Really, though, I find knives to be problematic."
"That," Rossi says with a native New Yorker's approval, "I can respect. Here's to the ones you see coming." His beer lifts, hiked in arbitrary salute and toast to their reflections behind the bar. "And," he finishes, the glass touching his lower lip, "to the people too stupid to get out of the way."
Maria breaks into laughter, deep and genuine, and she obediently lifts her glass in a toast. Dark eyes linger on Rossi's gesture, tracing over scarred hands, and then lift to fix on him. "Too stupid, huh? Never think they just don't move fast enough?"
Rossi's mouth thins, briefly moistened by beer. "The ones I'm thinking of," he says, gaze slicing askance again, "wouldn't make a difference. If you're too dumb not to walk into it to begin with, /fast/ isn't your problem. Ever hear of the Darwin awards, Maria? You are living in one of God's great examples to the human race. New York City."
"Everyone deserves what they get, then?" Maria's head tips slightly, dark hair tumbling forward over one shoulder, and she lifts her glass for a slow sip.
"Nah." Rossi tips back his drink again, throat working over a swallow. Two. "--But," he continues then, as though never interrupted, "some people you just can't help. What's the business like, teaching dancing?"
"Some people? Who can you help, then?" Maria continues likewise, fingers wrapped neatly around her glass.
Rossi arches a brow at Maria. "Everyone else. You get into dancing on purpose? I used to date a dancer. Well, saw a dancer. Well." Eyes roll up, sketching a prayer to an absent God. "Slept with one. Or two."
"Ah." Maria appears to make some sort of decision with that single, soft noise, and she turns toward the bar to lean forward on her elbows. "Yes, I got into it on purpose. I enjoying knowing what to do with my body." It's a statement of fact, lacking flirtatious tone or smile.
The glance Rossi returns to Maria is quizzical: even understanding. "Yeah," he says, with surprise pinning down the lighter reply. "I get that. Guy who can control himself's hard to beat. Or woman," he amends, with a concession to the weaker sex. "You been doing it long?"
"Years," Maria confirms with a small smile directed down at her drink. Mystery. "Do you dance?" she asks after a moment, lifting her eyes back to Rossi.
"Time to time," Rossi admits, straight-faced into the confessional of his glass. His profile is a thing of rulers and marble, chiseled out of stone according to a more ancient model of masculine beauty. Roman. He looks at Maria's doppelganger in the mirror and says, "In the living room. Sometimes even with actual music. I got a really mean conga step that works great when I'm making linguini."
"Do you make everything about violence?" Maria wonders next, watching Rossi full-on as he considers the mirror. A hand sneaks up, flickering motion, to slide a dark curl behind her ear.
Eyebrows lift, turning curiosity back at Maria. "Only if you've know what actual dancing's supposed to look like," Rossi retorts. Dry humor slithers under the accent, trawling for vowels. "I'm pretty bad. What's that got to do with violence?"
"Guy who can control himself's hard to beat," Maria mimicks, timing and tone an exact echo of earlier words. She lifts her glass and tips it toward him in indication and then raises it for a drink.
A grin in earnest this time, a flash of pure amusement. "You're the one reading violence in it. Not me. Hard to beat," Rossi clarifies, and flicks a fingernail against the bell of his glass. It chimes thickly, ill-tuned to perform. "In a class by himself. Got nothing to do with pounding on him."
Maria dips her head ruefully and allows, "Maybe."
"Thinking with your muscles," Rossi says, and the grin shifts, becoming something more resigned, self-mocking. "Get into the habit and sometimes it's hard to break out."
"Does that get you into trouble then, Ch--" Maria pauses and turns toward him, abruptly curious. "Do you rather Chris, or Rossi?"
The shoulders shrug; when they settle, it is to a more relaxed slant than before. "Either one," Rossi admits, and lowers his glass to tap on the counter. Refills. His glance skips to Maria's drink, measuring. "You want another one? I'll buy. --Cops call me Rossi. Friends call me Chris. Or asshat. I'll answer to all three."
"Asshat?" Maria's laugh sounds again, low and rumbling, and she glances down to her drink. Considering. The moment's silence is a bit longer than perhaps it needs to be before she allows, "Sure, why not? I'll get the next round." Her fingers tap against her glass as she explains, "I figured, about the cops and the Rossi. That's how you introduced yourself, though. Thought you might prefer it."
"Off the clock," Rossi remembers, and swings his gaze around the bar, twisting to take in the rest of the patrons. Looking for the criminal in the room -- he refocuses on Mystique. Again, the twist of lips. "Out of the courthouse," he elaborates, lifting a hand's summons to the bartender. "Spent the last few hours on the witness stand. Takes a while to get the stink of our proud judicial system out of my clothes. Thanks for asking, though."
The criminal in the room lifts her brows as the bartender lumbers near. "Hell. Doing what?"
Rossi cants his head to Maria's glass as well. Joe obliges. "Witnessing." A succinct enough reply to cover the case. He scrubs a knuckle across his jaw and rubs it hard against the bristle-touched throat. "All part of the proud blue package. One of the perks of the job."
"Well. Imagine that." Maria's dry reply notes the succinct, acknowledges the vague, and leaves it to sit while she drains the last of her glass. "So the conga. Where'd you pick that one up? Not the station, surely?"
"Where'd you pick up salsa?" Rossi asks, shifting in thanks for the bartender's refill. Joe moves away with the dignity of the overweight, a massive float behind his bar. "You pick that up in ballet class?"
"Oh, neat sidestep," Maria approves with lowly rumbling amusement as she pulls her refilled glass toward her. "Family thing. I started taking classes in high school."
Rossi wraps his hand around the fresh glass, the heat from his fingers fogging through condensation. "Ballroom dance class in college," he replies, other hand steepling over the mouth of his beer. "I was dating this girl, she needed a partner-- took six classes and then broke up with her."
"Dropped the girl, kept the dance," Maria approves, and lifts her glass to drink to it.
"Ugly," Rossi tells the dance teacher, wry. "Same class for the rest of the semester? Sucked ass. Couldn't lose the credits."
"Probably ought to work on that timing thing," Maria agrees, and one nimble foot taps against the bar.
Rossi tells that tapping foot, "Some people, you just can't save." The Darwin Awards receive a solemn, if silent toast. And then back, quizzical, "Family thing?"
Maria turns to face Rossi more fully and blinks at him. "What," she asks bluntly. "You get somebody killed or something?"
"Again with the violence," Rossi marvels, brows twitching together. He fists his temple, head resting on the bulwark of his forearm. "What the hell're you talking about?"
Maria watches Rossi in silence, brows pulled together, and rests her glass lightly against the span of her thigh.
Silence meets more puzzled silence. Rossi watches back, caution hooking into the edges of his expression before he turns back to his drink, spine and shoulders set under the prickle of attention.
Maria's smile spreads slowly. "I mean," she continues, as if no silence had existed. "You've been a cop for awhile, right? You've at least seen people die."
There is more silence, but it is a tighter, fine-strung silence now, plucked like a guitar string and set to humming. Rossi drinks his beer. "Yeah," he'll concede. "I'm on Homicide and MA."
"Cops?" Maria prompts, strumming the tension with a deft sense of careless curiousity.
The line of Rossi's cheek pares fine, betraying the stitch of muscle in the jaw. "Three days from September 11th," he says, baritone burring harsh mockery, "You wanna ask me /that/?"
Heedless, careless, Maria dismisses Rossi with a flick of her fingers over her drink. "That's not what I mean. I mean, /seen/ them. Right? Friends?"
"What's your point?"
Maria raises spread palms. "I'm just curious. Jerry - my uncle - never will say."
"Maybe it's not something he wants to talk about," Rossi suggests, without subtlety. His head tips. "You seen people die?"
Maria smiles. "Yes."
"And?"
"What would you like to know?"
Rossi's brow furrows. The drink is forgotten. "Why's it matter if I've seen cops die?"
"Or friends," Maria reminds. "I'm curious."
Rossi falls silent again. The beer, remembered, receives the brunt of his blank and thoughtful stare.
"I have always thought," Maria continues in the face of silence. "That how a man reacts to death says a good deal about his character. Don't you think?"
"I've always thought," Rossi counters, lifting his beer to his lips, "That how a man reacts to life says a lot more. Dying's easy. Living's the pain."
"Reacting to death," Maria reminds, "Is not the same as dying."
The cop glances aside to Maria. "Not the same," he says frankly. "But pretty damn close. Everybody dies. You see someone die up close, it's odds to evens you're remembering it could just as easily be you."
"Ah." Maria breathes the single sound again as if something vital has been revealed about her companion, and she dips her head for a concentrated drink.
There is a small pause while Rossi reads oracles in his drink. A callused knuckle sketches a face in the glass. Condensation pools at the bottom of an eye, trickling down in false tears. "Trade you," he says at last, the words light: the voice not. "Who'd you see die?"
"Recently?"
"How many people you seen die?"
Maria pauses. She considers, head tipped slightly away from Rossi. Eventually she looks back to him with a smile. "I don't recall."
Nails scratch at a cheek, stubble rasping under the climb of brows. "That many? Or that forgettable?"
"In some instances, both."
"That's some dance studio you're running there," Rossi says.
One shoulder tilts up, an easily dismissive gesture, and Maria smiles into her drink.
The beer is halfway gone, and the bartender answers the halfway mark, a spot-check cruising over Rossi's drink before moving on to Maria's. "Another?" Joe asks, slinging a dish towel over his shoulder.
Rossi sits in silence, some febrile, physical awareness waking in the relaxed frame.
"On me this time," Maria confirms.
Joe is agreeable, casting a quick glance at Rossi to check for refusal before going to work with the tap and bottles. "First dead body," Chris tells Maria, stirring in his seat to hook his elbow over his knee. "Age four. Uncle Jimmy. Friend of my dad's, out of the two-seven. Got shot heading home from shift. Wasn't even on duty. Went to his funeral and his widow gave us cake."
"And the last?" Maria prompts as her elbows find the edge of the bar again and her gaze slips after the agreeable Joe.
"Something for something," Rossi says, turning back to the bar to polish off the last of his beer. A nearby bowl of peanuts is spun towards Maria, set in a frisbee twirl between them before it bumps to a halt against his arm.
"Seven. A homeless man, frozen in the street in January," Maria returns without hesitation. She smiles her thanks and stretches out to steal a handfull of peanuts.
There are napkins behind the bar, hoarded in a reserve. Rossi drags himself up on the stool, straightening to his full height to lean over the counter. "Seventeen year old kid," he says in a muffled voice, a hand filling with napkins before he retreats back to his seat. "Three day old suicide. Did herself with pills and her parents didn't notice until the smell started."
Maria watches Rossi's movements with a sharp eye, critically observant. "A scientist," she answers honestly. "Stabbed, I believe."
There's surprise in the kick of glance Rossi turns to her, green of stained-glass clarity rimmed around by white and black. "What the fuck?" he puzzles. "How'd you end up seeing that?"
"I was there to collect some information," Maria answers, meeting green with deep brown. "How many people have /you/ seen die?"
Rossi's frown deepens. "What kind of information does a--" he begins, only to break off into a brush of fingers to eyehollows. The thumb and knuckle pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Damned if I know. Seen die, not so many. Seen dead, plenty. 9/11--" Another scissored interruption in the baritone. His hand falls away; the thinned mouth curls in a humorless smile. "Saw a lot that day."
"And homicide," Maria acknowledges with a slight lean toward Rossi and bright-sharp eyes that watch the fall of that hand.
"Homicide means they're already dead," Rossi reminds, shoulders settling over the body's deliberate distribution over the stool. Like many active men, when he chooses to settle, he does so without respect for space, limbs sprawling to boneless entropy. "Seen a few vics on their way."
"And Uncle Jimmy." Maria adjusts to Rossi's sprawl with thoughtless ease, a dancer's grace as she shifts on her barstool. "How many not related to your job?"
Rossi's eyes shutter, hiding themselves behind the veil of eyelids and long, feminine lashes. "A few," he says, laconic enough to make the answer meaningless. "Everybody dies, princess."
"A few," Maria murmurs. She smiles, and lifts her glass it toast to the many few.
"Enough," Rossi amends, his own glass untouched. His foot hooks its heel in the battered rungs of the stool, legs straddled wide. An elbow folds over the back of the chair to fist his head again, heavy and tousled. "That whole dignity of death thing? Bullshit."
"Few men die with dignity."
"No man dies with dignity."
"You have seen every man die?" Maria shakes her head and leans back, glass left atop the counter. "Some do. Few. But there are those who meet their death well."
"You've seen a lot of guys die, then?" Rossi asks, attention a sharp and glittering thing: like diamonds, like shards of glass.
Maria, succinct, replies: "Enough."
"How many's enough?"
Maria faces Rossi with slowly lifting brows. "I don't recall," she reminds patiently.
"Enough to see men die with dignity," Rossi points out, and then quirks his mouth into a ghost of a ... something. A smile. Or not. "Enough to say /few/, even though I'm saying none."
Maria's expression shows something like fascination as she watches Rossi. "Are you on the clock now, detective?" she wonders.
Rossi's glance to his watch is telling, as much as the rueful realization that spits across his expression. "Off the clock," he admits. "Guess I'm not off the job. Hard to do. Used to being a cop."
"It is a consuming job."
"Habit," Rossi says, and smiles without his eyes. "You're not the usual type of dancer I run into."
"Aren't I?" Maria's smile is full and pleased, entirely.
"The ones I meet are more interested in getting my clothes off. Or theirs."
"Would you be more comfortable if I were trying to seduce you?"
Rossi considers Maria thoughtfully, a measure of professional interest alert behind the inspection. "Pass," he decides at last. "I don't need that kind of complication."
"The complication," Maria wonders bluntly, "Of sex? Or me?"
Amusement. "Both." Bluntness in return for bluntness. "Death isn't one of those things I talk about with my one night stands."
"Why not?"
"Complications." Rossi reaches for a peanut, and grins suddenly for no reason whatsoever. Memory moves like a hand across the face. "I'm not interested in death when I'm jumping into bed with someone."
"You have it quite backwards. It's death that often makes us interested in jumping into bed with someone."
Rossi's glance is sharp through the fading traces of that swift warmth. "Maybe," he grants, "but it isn't her life or her religion I want, if you get my drift. One body, no strings."
Maria shifts, sliding from her stool to settle her weight on the balls of her feet and stepping back with a graceful motion. A dancer's move. A fighter's move. "There are always strings, Christopher."
"Yeah," Rossi admits, watching that rise with an assessing eye, his own body stirring to an elusive physical echo that doesn't quite materialize. "Maybe. But that piper, I can pay." Green eyes flicker, abruptly self-mocking. "Mostly."
"Mostly," Maria confirms, and smiles deeply as she turns toward the door. "Thanks for the drinks, detective."
Rossi's chin lifts after her, a salute that serves as farewell and acknowledgment both. Brooklyn. "You too," he returns, and turns back to the bar. Beer three. Joe's questioning brow prompts a raised finger. Keep them coming.
Three days to go.
[Log ends]
Rossi spends the night in a bar, with a woman. They talk about death. They do not flirt. It is all very odd and strange and disconcerting.