Drowned Ceremony of Innocence
I so want to squash that little bug. Damn him and his geriatric gay lover.
There are motorcycles outside the bar, rank upon rank of gleaming, well-loved cruisers, sleek and sapient in metal and chrome. Inside, the bikes are made flesh; the establishment's clientelle is a wash of black leather, denim and attitude, gathered in excess around pool tables and the long, low bar that stretches the length of one wall. Brassy voices rise, clashing and mingling in argument and amusement over the click of balls. The music is no better. The rock is dated -- the roll is flat -- but it is enjoyed nonetheless, ripe with the quality of nostalgia that prompts the crowd to sing along in cacophony when the chorus comes around again.
At one end of the grimy counter sits Det. Rossi, hunched in stiff solitude, odd man out and accepted as such by little more than the occasional passing slap on the back or familiar, obscene greeting. The leather overcoat stretches over the broad back, hiding the attire beneath. If he is on duty, it is of a lackadaisical kind. His hands loop at the base of a half-finished beer, framed in turn by emptied peanut shells.
...which of these things is not like the other - which of these things just doesn't belong? Ah - that would be Sebastian Shaw, stepping inside the bar with a crack of his neck. "Well," he says - he knows there are eyes on him. "Who wants to take my money in a friendly spot of billiards?" The mockery in his tone is evident, as is the black humor that underlines it.
By no stretch of the imagination could the assembled men (and women, more appendages than compatriots) be considered literate in the world of commerce; still less could one attribute to them an interest in mainstream, popular culture. Skepticism bubbles around the crowd, immediate hostility and relish following hard on its heels. "Money?" says a bearded man, mouth turning into a slow, vulpine grin. "I'll take your money. I dunno about /friendly/, though."
This brilliant wit drags laughter from his companions. At the bar, Rossi turns his head and discovers Sebastian Shaw standing in the doorway. Green eyes close. The detective looks tired. "Fuck."
"Well," Shaw replies with a smile tending more feline, wide and spreading of the Shere Khan variety. "The friendliness is negotiable, hoss," he says, the word twisted to be insulting. "But if ain't friendly," as he swaggers towards the man, "I probably won't let you win." This, a jaded cop might note, is the attitude of a man intending on starting a fight.
"Jesus Christ," says the cop.
"Boy," says the beamish bearded one, pool cue spinning in his hand to present itself, butt end first, in a jab at Shaw's chest. "You're not pretty enough for me to bother with the lube. You'll find it plenty friendly when I bend you over and shove this up your--"
"/Shaw/," says Rossi, baritone lifting over the crowd's happy, animal growl. Violence prickles at the skin, drawing air tight and stretched across the bar. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Sebastian Shaw looks down at the pool cue, up at the bearded man, and then his smile is full of teeth. "Well, why don't you just deep-throat it first, you leather-clad faggo--" He pauses as Rossi's call cuts across the room. "Why, /de/tective," he says. "I'm here for a--" glance at the bearded man "-- friendly game of pool. What about you?"
There is nothing friendly about the pool cue being lifted backhand, ready to be swung at Shaw's head. Nor in the restraining hand that drops on the would be assailant's shoulder, caution borrowed from a wiser head than his. Not Rossi's, that; the detective remains at the bar, a grimace slashing his mouth into harsh, cynical lines. He glances over the disappointed crowd. "You're in the wrong place for that," he suggests, turning back to his beer. "If you're looking to get your ass kicked, maybe. Hog'd be happy to make you intimately acquainted with a pool ball, if you ask nice. Thought you were more into doing the pounding than being pounded. Guess you never know."
"You want to put that to the test?" Shaw asks, his casual malice now swinging towards Rossi. "What," he says, looking around. "I don't see your big, bad protector here tonight," he says. "Unless you've got him hiding under a trenchcoat? Or is he on the run, hiding from Jack Ruby?"
Rossi skids a blank look over his shoulder at Shaw, beer tipping in a sluggish summons to the bartender. Refill. The burly man behind the counter leans into his arms and glowers over it at his patrons with democratic dislike. "Payback," the detective supposes, fishing a peanut out of the bowl. "Karma. You believe in karma? I figure this is what I get for leaving the Church. God, Shaw -- balances out."
There is a something of a smug look on Shaw's face at that comparison, and he nods genially. "It seems you know me well, detective." He leaves the bearded man behind, perhaps with a little encouragement from the two fellows in suits who seem to have slipped in the door, going to claim a seat next to Rossi at the bar. "Whiskey," he croaks to the bartender. "Cheap as you've got."
"And if I'm really good before Christmas," Rossi finishes into the emptying bell of his glass, "we'll get world peace before New Year's and you'll go out of business." The bartender slides a new beer in front of the detective, smudges on the glass attesting to a general indifference to sanitation. One patron served, he bends his scowl at Shaw and rubs thumb and forefinger together. Money first. Then alcohol.
A hundred dollar bill is produced and put on the table. "Tab," Shaw says, and he smiles at Rossi. "The muties just killed a President, Christopher," he says. "Did you know, my stock went up six percent the next day? Whole fucking Dow Jones plummets, and Shaw Industries is booming." A beat. "I love my job."
"Fuck you," Rossi says, and there's a heartfelt quality to the habit-worn words. Swift irritation, bit out through teeth; he shows them in a flash of white, then subsides, face stilling on a caught breath. The detective eases carefully back into his slouch. "Anyone ever tell you you're a waste of flesh, Shaw? An entire planet of trees gassing out oxygen would drop dead if they knew who was using it."
"We're short on timber," Shaw agrees cheerily. "Thinking about investing in Brazilian logging for just that reason - did you know there's really just billions of acres of prime, untouched rainforest in the Amazon?" He smiles. "So," he says. "I got a very nice letter from your squad, by the way, thanking me for my new foundation. I didn't see your signature on the card, though."
Rossi considers, eyelids lowering to veil the pale eyes in a curtain of black. "I don't remember any card," he notes, shelling another peanut between his fingers. The bartender slaps a glass in front of Shaw and fills it. Cheap whiskey he demanded, cheap whiskey he gets. It resembles diesel. "Must've missed that one. Trying to buy your way into grace?"
"Trying?" Shaw echoes. "Christopher, I already have. Chief Brown -" the head of the Detective Bureau "- is trying to angle for an invitation to the Hellfire Club." He smiles. "I'm thinking of offering one - New York's Finest, after all, are so close to my heart."
The detective's mouth thins, tightening a hard slash over the clench of jaw. A passing expression; his face eases almost immediately. "You and Chief Brown," he mocks, and lifts his beer in a humorous toast. "I'd almost pay to see that, Bastian, old buddy. Old pal. Rubbing shoulders with hoi polloi?"
"It's nothing at all," Shaw says with mock sincerity. "Why, you folks are out there protecting us every day - if it wasn't for you," he says. "All kinds of terrible things could happen - there could riots, or chaos, or... I mean, no one would be safe, not even highest and mightiest among us."
"You're a asshole," Rossi says, flatly.
Shaw smiles, tossing back his whiskey. "Yes," he says. "Yes, Christopher, I am."
"Funny," Rossi adds, shelling another peanut to flick the meat out of the husk, popped by a thumbnail into the waiting mouth. "I usually have some respect for assholes. Guess you just break every mold."
A rat-a-tat drums the empty glass on the bar, and with a foul look at Shaw for general rudeness the bartender sloshes more into it. "I have a lot of respect for you," the tycoon responds back with a tone of mock hurt. "I'm... Well, I don't know what to say." A beat. "I mean, I even tried to find you a girlfriend!"
"I already had a girlfriend," Rossi remembers, and the thought cheers him marginally. The green eyes glitter. "Yours. Emma Frost, wasn't it? Then again, you have so many, who's counting? She was hot." The beer glass lolls lazily on its base, rocked to streak foam and liquid along its ribs.
"She is," Shaw acknowledges, though there's a tightening of his hand on his glass. "Kind of a skank, though." His smile is thin. "I hope you wore a raincoat - you could have caught something."
Rossi wonders into his glass, "From you? Like hell." The words, bounced off the inside of his drink, emerge with an additional touch of brassy cheer. The detective stretches cautiously across the bar to claim a new bowl. Stale popcorn. Yay. "She was good. Great company. And in bed? Damn." He shakes his head in evident regret. Eats a kernel of popcorn. Looks briefly nostalgic.
Rather than barb back, Shaw just nods to this thoughtfully. "Amen to that," he says, raising his whiskey glass in an almost genial salute. "And that /ass/," he says. "Did you know she's thirty?"
"Doesn't show it," Rossi grants, and the corner of his mouth curves in a swift twist of humor. "Money can buy some things. Have some popcorn," he adds kindly, sliding the bowl across the counter to Shaw. "It'll help that piss you're drinking go down."
"Well," Shaw says, "I can affirm that it is a purchased good..." He chuckles. "But I'm equal opportunity, Christopher. I don't care how they came by it." He shakes his head, then reaches for the popcorn to take a bite. "Thanks," he grunts.
Rare civility. Rossi says, "You're welcome," but it is an absent-minded reply, attention already turned to the dingy reflection of the room spread out in a mirror behind the bar. The detective's brow furrows over a squabble breaking out around a pool table. "You always travel with muscle?" he asks, and relinquishes his emptied glass for its full replacement. "What're you afraid of? Mutants? Or customers?"
"Some of both," Shaw replies. "But I'm the twentieth-richest man in the United States, Christopher," he says. A little frown. "I dropped three places this year." He shrugs, finishes his whiskey, and then looks at the bodyguards. "There are plenty of reasons for people to dislike me."
"You mean besides your personality and your big mouth?" the black pot suggests, brushing peanut shells off his side of the counter into the pit behind the bar. The sound of their fall is a low-voiced shiver, a whispered tapping that rings against plates and metal. "I would've figured that alone would get you a good spot on the hit list."
"Conveniently," Shaw says cheerily, "the people who hate me the most are all pacifists."
Rossi looks regretful. "Liberals," he says. "Figures."
"I'm a red island in a sea of blue," Shaw mourns. "But you're a cop, Christopher - I would have thought with the union and all, you'd put Tammany in your prayers."
"I don't know shit about Tammany," Rossi declares with incomplete truth and perfect cordiality, "but fuck politics on both sides. You're a piece of work. One of these days, I expect to get called on your scene." A lazy finger taps against the bar; the bartender, eyeing him dourly, does not move. "We got a pool on it."
"Shiiiit," Shaw drawls, Pittsburgh streets coming through. "What's it running, these days? And can I buy in?"
Rossi taps again. Brooklyn's accent snarks back. "You're not worth a lot. The odds are too low." His mouth tugs into a crooked grin. With reluctance, the bartender swipes one last time across the far end of the bar and meanders back up to refill the bowls: peanuts, popcorn, bah. "You want to try not being a prick in public once in a while, maybe then you'll be an interesting bet."
"Thinking about going on Larry King," Shaw says sublimely. "What's your opinion on the forced sterilization of mutants?"
Rossi's jaw tightens again. A muscle leaps under the skin. "I think," he says deliberately, fishing in his jacket to produce a wallet, "I'm done drinking for the night. --Thanks, Bill."
"Don't worry about it," Shaw says, nodding to the bartender. "Why don't you just put the detective on my tab? He's such pleasant conversation, and I'm always the man to buy drinks for the thin blue line." An overhard clap on Rossi's shoulder. "Have a nice night, chum."
Hard green eyes turn to Shaw, consider him for a moment, then scythe back to the bartender. Rossi plants a bill on the counter. The bartender, nothing loathe, claims it with pragmatic haste. "I got it," he says, twitching the shoulder away with unflattering distaste. He slides off the stool, movements deliberate, carriage stiff. "Toss him out before someone kills him in your bar, Bill. He's rich."
"Have a nice night, Christopher," Shaw offers. "Don't get mugged on your way home."
Rossi shoves one hand in his pocket, the other backhanding a middle finger on the way out. "Fuck you, Bastian," he drawls. The door bangs open, letting in a wash of fresh air, and then he is gone.
There are motorcycles outside the bar, rank upon rank of gleaming, well-loved cruisers, sleek and sapient in metal and chrome. Inside, the bikes are made flesh; the establishment's clientelle is a wash of black leather, denim and attitude, gathered in excess around pool tables and the long, low bar that stretches the length of one wall. Brassy voices rise, clashing and mingling in argument and amusement over the click of balls. The music is no better. The rock is dated -- the roll is flat -- but it is enjoyed nonetheless, ripe with the quality of nostalgia that prompts the crowd to sing along in cacophony when the chorus comes around again.
At one end of the grimy counter sits Det. Rossi, hunched in stiff solitude, odd man out and accepted as such by little more than the occasional passing slap on the back or familiar, obscene greeting. The leather overcoat stretches over the broad back, hiding the attire beneath. If he is on duty, it is of a lackadaisical kind. His hands loop at the base of a half-finished beer, framed in turn by emptied peanut shells.
...which of these things is not like the other - which of these things just doesn't belong? Ah - that would be Sebastian Shaw, stepping inside the bar with a crack of his neck. "Well," he says - he knows there are eyes on him. "Who wants to take my money in a friendly spot of billiards?" The mockery in his tone is evident, as is the black humor that underlines it.
By no stretch of the imagination could the assembled men (and women, more appendages than compatriots) be considered literate in the world of commerce; still less could one attribute to them an interest in mainstream, popular culture. Skepticism bubbles around the crowd, immediate hostility and relish following hard on its heels. "Money?" says a bearded man, mouth turning into a slow, vulpine grin. "I'll take your money. I dunno about /friendly/, though."
This brilliant wit drags laughter from his companions. At the bar, Rossi turns his head and discovers Sebastian Shaw standing in the doorway. Green eyes close. The detective looks tired. "Fuck."
"Well," Shaw replies with a smile tending more feline, wide and spreading of the Shere Khan variety. "The friendliness is negotiable, hoss," he says, the word twisted to be insulting. "But if ain't friendly," as he swaggers towards the man, "I probably won't let you win." This, a jaded cop might note, is the attitude of a man intending on starting a fight.
"Jesus Christ," says the cop.
"Boy," says the beamish bearded one, pool cue spinning in his hand to present itself, butt end first, in a jab at Shaw's chest. "You're not pretty enough for me to bother with the lube. You'll find it plenty friendly when I bend you over and shove this up your--"
"/Shaw/," says Rossi, baritone lifting over the crowd's happy, animal growl. Violence prickles at the skin, drawing air tight and stretched across the bar. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Sebastian Shaw looks down at the pool cue, up at the bearded man, and then his smile is full of teeth. "Well, why don't you just deep-throat it first, you leather-clad faggo--" He pauses as Rossi's call cuts across the room. "Why, /de/tective," he says. "I'm here for a--" glance at the bearded man "-- friendly game of pool. What about you?"
There is nothing friendly about the pool cue being lifted backhand, ready to be swung at Shaw's head. Nor in the restraining hand that drops on the would be assailant's shoulder, caution borrowed from a wiser head than his. Not Rossi's, that; the detective remains at the bar, a grimace slashing his mouth into harsh, cynical lines. He glances over the disappointed crowd. "You're in the wrong place for that," he suggests, turning back to his beer. "If you're looking to get your ass kicked, maybe. Hog'd be happy to make you intimately acquainted with a pool ball, if you ask nice. Thought you were more into doing the pounding than being pounded. Guess you never know."
"You want to put that to the test?" Shaw asks, his casual malice now swinging towards Rossi. "What," he says, looking around. "I don't see your big, bad protector here tonight," he says. "Unless you've got him hiding under a trenchcoat? Or is he on the run, hiding from Jack Ruby?"
Rossi skids a blank look over his shoulder at Shaw, beer tipping in a sluggish summons to the bartender. Refill. The burly man behind the counter leans into his arms and glowers over it at his patrons with democratic dislike. "Payback," the detective supposes, fishing a peanut out of the bowl. "Karma. You believe in karma? I figure this is what I get for leaving the Church. God, Shaw -- balances out."
There is a something of a smug look on Shaw's face at that comparison, and he nods genially. "It seems you know me well, detective." He leaves the bearded man behind, perhaps with a little encouragement from the two fellows in suits who seem to have slipped in the door, going to claim a seat next to Rossi at the bar. "Whiskey," he croaks to the bartender. "Cheap as you've got."
"And if I'm really good before Christmas," Rossi finishes into the emptying bell of his glass, "we'll get world peace before New Year's and you'll go out of business." The bartender slides a new beer in front of the detective, smudges on the glass attesting to a general indifference to sanitation. One patron served, he bends his scowl at Shaw and rubs thumb and forefinger together. Money first. Then alcohol.
A hundred dollar bill is produced and put on the table. "Tab," Shaw says, and he smiles at Rossi. "The muties just killed a President, Christopher," he says. "Did you know, my stock went up six percent the next day? Whole fucking Dow Jones plummets, and Shaw Industries is booming." A beat. "I love my job."
"Fuck you," Rossi says, and there's a heartfelt quality to the habit-worn words. Swift irritation, bit out through teeth; he shows them in a flash of white, then subsides, face stilling on a caught breath. The detective eases carefully back into his slouch. "Anyone ever tell you you're a waste of flesh, Shaw? An entire planet of trees gassing out oxygen would drop dead if they knew who was using it."
"We're short on timber," Shaw agrees cheerily. "Thinking about investing in Brazilian logging for just that reason - did you know there's really just billions of acres of prime, untouched rainforest in the Amazon?" He smiles. "So," he says. "I got a very nice letter from your squad, by the way, thanking me for my new foundation. I didn't see your signature on the card, though."
Rossi considers, eyelids lowering to veil the pale eyes in a curtain of black. "I don't remember any card," he notes, shelling another peanut between his fingers. The bartender slaps a glass in front of Shaw and fills it. Cheap whiskey he demanded, cheap whiskey he gets. It resembles diesel. "Must've missed that one. Trying to buy your way into grace?"
"Trying?" Shaw echoes. "Christopher, I already have. Chief Brown -" the head of the Detective Bureau "- is trying to angle for an invitation to the Hellfire Club." He smiles. "I'm thinking of offering one - New York's Finest, after all, are so close to my heart."
The detective's mouth thins, tightening a hard slash over the clench of jaw. A passing expression; his face eases almost immediately. "You and Chief Brown," he mocks, and lifts his beer in a humorous toast. "I'd almost pay to see that, Bastian, old buddy. Old pal. Rubbing shoulders with hoi polloi?"
"It's nothing at all," Shaw says with mock sincerity. "Why, you folks are out there protecting us every day - if it wasn't for you," he says. "All kinds of terrible things could happen - there could riots, or chaos, or... I mean, no one would be safe, not even highest and mightiest among us."
"You're a asshole," Rossi says, flatly.
Shaw smiles, tossing back his whiskey. "Yes," he says. "Yes, Christopher, I am."
"Funny," Rossi adds, shelling another peanut to flick the meat out of the husk, popped by a thumbnail into the waiting mouth. "I usually have some respect for assholes. Guess you just break every mold."
A rat-a-tat drums the empty glass on the bar, and with a foul look at Shaw for general rudeness the bartender sloshes more into it. "I have a lot of respect for you," the tycoon responds back with a tone of mock hurt. "I'm... Well, I don't know what to say." A beat. "I mean, I even tried to find you a girlfriend!"
"I already had a girlfriend," Rossi remembers, and the thought cheers him marginally. The green eyes glitter. "Yours. Emma Frost, wasn't it? Then again, you have so many, who's counting? She was hot." The beer glass lolls lazily on its base, rocked to streak foam and liquid along its ribs.
"She is," Shaw acknowledges, though there's a tightening of his hand on his glass. "Kind of a skank, though." His smile is thin. "I hope you wore a raincoat - you could have caught something."
Rossi wonders into his glass, "From you? Like hell." The words, bounced off the inside of his drink, emerge with an additional touch of brassy cheer. The detective stretches cautiously across the bar to claim a new bowl. Stale popcorn. Yay. "She was good. Great company. And in bed? Damn." He shakes his head in evident regret. Eats a kernel of popcorn. Looks briefly nostalgic.
Rather than barb back, Shaw just nods to this thoughtfully. "Amen to that," he says, raising his whiskey glass in an almost genial salute. "And that /ass/," he says. "Did you know she's thirty?"
"Doesn't show it," Rossi grants, and the corner of his mouth curves in a swift twist of humor. "Money can buy some things. Have some popcorn," he adds kindly, sliding the bowl across the counter to Shaw. "It'll help that piss you're drinking go down."
"Well," Shaw says, "I can affirm that it is a purchased good..." He chuckles. "But I'm equal opportunity, Christopher. I don't care how they came by it." He shakes his head, then reaches for the popcorn to take a bite. "Thanks," he grunts.
Rare civility. Rossi says, "You're welcome," but it is an absent-minded reply, attention already turned to the dingy reflection of the room spread out in a mirror behind the bar. The detective's brow furrows over a squabble breaking out around a pool table. "You always travel with muscle?" he asks, and relinquishes his emptied glass for its full replacement. "What're you afraid of? Mutants? Or customers?"
"Some of both," Shaw replies. "But I'm the twentieth-richest man in the United States, Christopher," he says. A little frown. "I dropped three places this year." He shrugs, finishes his whiskey, and then looks at the bodyguards. "There are plenty of reasons for people to dislike me."
"You mean besides your personality and your big mouth?" the black pot suggests, brushing peanut shells off his side of the counter into the pit behind the bar. The sound of their fall is a low-voiced shiver, a whispered tapping that rings against plates and metal. "I would've figured that alone would get you a good spot on the hit list."
"Conveniently," Shaw says cheerily, "the people who hate me the most are all pacifists."
Rossi looks regretful. "Liberals," he says. "Figures."
"I'm a red island in a sea of blue," Shaw mourns. "But you're a cop, Christopher - I would have thought with the union and all, you'd put Tammany in your prayers."
"I don't know shit about Tammany," Rossi declares with incomplete truth and perfect cordiality, "but fuck politics on both sides. You're a piece of work. One of these days, I expect to get called on your scene." A lazy finger taps against the bar; the bartender, eyeing him dourly, does not move. "We got a pool on it."
"Shiiiit," Shaw drawls, Pittsburgh streets coming through. "What's it running, these days? And can I buy in?"
Rossi taps again. Brooklyn's accent snarks back. "You're not worth a lot. The odds are too low." His mouth tugs into a crooked grin. With reluctance, the bartender swipes one last time across the far end of the bar and meanders back up to refill the bowls: peanuts, popcorn, bah. "You want to try not being a prick in public once in a while, maybe then you'll be an interesting bet."
"Thinking about going on Larry King," Shaw says sublimely. "What's your opinion on the forced sterilization of mutants?"
Rossi's jaw tightens again. A muscle leaps under the skin. "I think," he says deliberately, fishing in his jacket to produce a wallet, "I'm done drinking for the night. --Thanks, Bill."
"Don't worry about it," Shaw says, nodding to the bartender. "Why don't you just put the detective on my tab? He's such pleasant conversation, and I'm always the man to buy drinks for the thin blue line." An overhard clap on Rossi's shoulder. "Have a nice night, chum."
Hard green eyes turn to Shaw, consider him for a moment, then scythe back to the bartender. Rossi plants a bill on the counter. The bartender, nothing loathe, claims it with pragmatic haste. "I got it," he says, twitching the shoulder away with unflattering distaste. He slides off the stool, movements deliberate, carriage stiff. "Toss him out before someone kills him in your bar, Bill. He's rich."
"Have a nice night, Christopher," Shaw offers. "Don't get mugged on your way home."
Rossi shoves one hand in his pocket, the other backhanding a middle finger on the way out. "Fuck you, Bastian," he drawls. The door bangs open, letting in a wash of fresh air, and then he is gone.