Fic: To Live and Die in Los Angeles (7/8)
“To Live and Die in Los Angeles”
Author: DJ_the_Writer
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Cursing, Drugs, PTSD, off-screen sex
Pairings: Charles/OFC
Beta: wikdsushi
Characters: Charles, Pickles, OCs
Summary: Charles attempts to recover from his ordeal during a legal tussle in LA.
[ Start back at the beginning]
I know it's Nathan/Charles month but sorry, no Nathan in this one.
Chapter 7
Charles made it back to Mordhaus ahead of schedule. Angela was waiting for him in his office, where she relinquished control of his computer. “The only prolonged conversation I had was with the Gibson sale rep.”
“He thinks I’m a robot anyway,” Charles said with some relief. “Anything else?”
“There’s a message from your nephew on your personal line.”
“What does he want?”
“Fan day tickets. Comped, I assume.”
Charles disabled the answering system with a click and brought up his emails. “This is why you don’t tell relatives you work for Dethklok.”
Under her hood, Angela was probably smiling. She did not ask where he went or any follow-up questions about his disappearance, and he set about returning phone calls and resuming his normal schedule. This included a call to his nephew, who was very disappointed by his decision. Charles didn’t like to disappoint Sam, but he also wanted Sam to continue being alive.
“What about as a Bar Mitzvah present?”
“How is that going? The ah, lessons.”
“Hebrew is really hard. I’m working hard. I don’t want money from you. I just want tickets.”
Because the last thing this trust fund kid needed was money. “Then go buy the damn things.”
“Uh, I tried, but they’re like, super-hard to get. And I got booted from the ticket server when I entered my name in.”
Because Charles may or may not have put certain people on lists. But he didn’t say that. “I’m proud of you for taking on this ... challenge. And I will get you something suitable. But Fan Day is dangerous and to be honest, not all it’s cracked up to be. You’ve spent more time with the band than anyone who’s attended Fan Day and at much closer range.”
“But they’re gonna play a secret song!”
“And the secret song will leak on the internet a few days later. I recommend WikiKlok. Though I do not, um, officially recognize the legality of that site or encourage you to use it.”
“Do all lawyers talk like you?”
“Good ones do,” he said, which was pretty honest.
Sam was eventually talked out of it, or just out of being depressed about it, and he had homework to do anyway, or so he said. It was late afternoon in California now, and very late in British Columbia. It was time to close up shop, but he headed down to the library instead, with a folder of information he’d received from General Crozier.
He had some reading to do.
********************************************
Angela only saw Charles sporadically over the next few days. The buildup to the next trip to LA was increasing, with wild rumors spreading about the lawsuits (none of them true), and the Commander wanted everything squared away with the new gigs booked before he left. He also spent a great deal of time in band meetings, presumably reminding them to do their jobs and keep the empire running, as his genius could only generate so much revenue without the music to accompany it. She was still sleeping in his room (and with him) more often than not, but nothing was ever a constant, except that he was very, very busy.
She didn’t like being ambushed, either in the field or in the break room near the command center, which she supposed was now her field. Klokateer 82’s eyes bored into her through the triangle slits. Fine, she wasn’t afraid of him. She stared right back and continued sipping her coffee.
“This is about me sleeping with the Commander.” It was not a question. And 82 could get weirdly jittery sometimes, so it was better to get to the point.
“Yes.”
“And presumably, you have a problem with it.”
“...No.” He was searching for something in her, as if she was a file he could open and read. “Whatever the Commander does is his business.”
“Which is why we’re discussing it here, alone and without his knowledge.”
82 flinched. It was hard to make 82 flinch, so she took some pride in it. “He’s a very important man. With a lot of secrets. Ones you don’t know about, even if you think you do.”
“I don’t presume that I do. Or ever could.”
“There’s things I don’t even know.”
“Then how do you know about them?”
“What?”
“How do you know about the things that you don’t know?” OK, so 82 wasn’t a mental giant, but he had to be somewhat aware to last this long so high up on the ladder. Or maybe he was just a really, really good bodyguard.
“People disappear ... then show up again. Some of the retired numbers aren’t really retired.”
Angela wondered if there was anyone more aware than her of how much about Charles Ofdensen's people didn’t know. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re smart,” he said, a surprising admission for him, “and he likes you.” That was even more surprising. His opinion, not the obvious. “But if you go near some of the stuff he’s been working on, you’re going to get burned. You’re going to get killed - “
“People take that for granted around here.”
“ - and I wanted to say I warned you.”
“Not to get killed?”
“Not to get killed asking questions.”
“The boss would never do that,” she said, though she honestly couldn’t be sure. Almost, but not entirely.
“Not him. Other people. Bad people. So, you were warned.” He turned around and walked away, the conversation apparently over with Angela left to wonder who a trained killer at the top of the blood-soaked Dethklok ladder would consider “bad.”
She did not bring up the conversation with Charles that evening. He was engrossed in his own concerns. That was not to say he was completely unresponsive to her, or that he took her presence for granted - everything in his body language when she entered the room told her that - but occasionally, his thoughts would drift away and she would nudge him, knocking on his cast for having his head in the clouds. He needed comforting, not badgering, and there was a fine line to observe there.
“I have a lot on my mind,” he just said, and let that stand.
“You also have a lot of My Little Pony stickers on your elbow.”
He groaned. Very few people saw his exposed cast. “I am going to find the person who keeps supplying Toki with these packs and kill him. Because I was pretty sure I disposed of every last one.”
“Do you want me to actually do that?”
“No.” He didn’t have to think about it. “It makes Toki happy. I suspect he actually thinks they have some healing qualities, and the less he worries about me, the better.”
Perhaps in an unconscious (or very conscious) attempt to impress her, Charles had a couple things in his room to make it look more lived in, aside from her often strewn clothing of course. He still could clean for five minutes and qualify the room for the cover of Uninhabited Bedrooms Monthly, but there were some pictures on the wall, all family, and a new one on his bed stand. She’d never seen it before, but he didn’t seem bothered when she plucked it off the stand. It was in a hospital, with his mother holding an infant in a pink blanket, his father behind her, and what she assumed was a toddler version of Charles on the bed beside a bald teenager. It was not the ideal wall photo, with Mrs. Ofdensen looking exhausted and appropriately disheveled, and little Charles was squinting, but it had a very expensive frame.
“Is this your brother?” It was a leading question; she didn’t know who else the other boy could be. She was also avoiding using his name, which she wasn’t sure how to pronounce correctly.
“Yes.” He didn’t sit up to look at it with her. “It’s the only picture of all five of us. He died two months later.” He added, the mind reader that he was, “It’s pronounced EYE-vin.”
“I didn’t say - “
“It’s a hard name to pronounce. The consonants are very misleading.” His voice was half-mumbled because he was buried under the blankets. “I don’t remember him at all. I just remember what his room looked like. And his funeral.”
She put the picture in its place.
“I’m sorry if I made you think about your brother.”
“You didn’t,” she replied. “How do you know about my brother?”
“I finally got around to reading your file.” In another other situation, it would have been creepy, but it wasn’t. “I know policy is no contact with your family, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep track of them. He gets out in, what, five years?”
“Then he’ll just go back in on a parole violation. But he’ll be sick for awhile before he does,” Angela said, and now she did think about Ray, someone she desperately tried not to think about when her name was still legally Angela and she was still legally alive. “I blame you.”
Charles repositioned himself so he was facing her, even though she knew that without his glasses, he couldn’t see much of her. “Me?”
“You Republicans and your crappy Reaganite opinions on hospitalizing the poor. So now he has to go to jail to get help.”
“What makes you think I’m a Republican? Wait, stupid question. But I’m not a straight-ticket voter.” He looked a little relieved that she didn’t actually blame him. It wasn’t his fault that her brother had been in and out of jails since he was sixteen for minor crimes that just masked rather severe schizophrenia. In prison, he got medicine. When he was released for good behavior (he was very well-behaved when medicated), he stopped taking his medicine, committed some minor violation, and went back in.
Angela watched the process close up when she lived in Detroit, and tried to do something about it, but he was difficult to deal with when he was sick and her resources were limited. “Some people can’t be fixed,” she said. “Is that cruel?”
“I have a whole different concept of cruel,” Charles admitted. “But on a personal level, no, it’s not cruel. It’s honest. Life can be very cruel. When he gets out, the corporation can help him.”
Charles did not offer these favors lightly - not to employees. She was surprised. “I’m not supposed to have any contact with him,” Angela said.
“I didn’t say you should fly in and take him out to lunch. I said the corporation can help him.” He reached out and took her hand. “Don’t be so shocked. You know we have the best health plan in the world for our employees and their families.”
“If they survive.”
“Big ‘if’ there, but yes.”
It occurred to her that Charles might have a reason for being sympathetic to the hospitalized, or the mentally ill who should be hospitalized, given his recent experiences, but she decided not to bring it up. She wasn’t the one who was mental.
********************************************
Mordland had many pools. Not all of them were filled with blood, or a cheaper blood substitute. It wasn’t economical and it made sense to have a few of the pools actually usable. Of the actual band members, Pickles got the most use, floating around on a raft with an appropriate beach cocktail in one hand and a joint in the other.
Charles sat on a deck chair by the edge, his cast arm holding down the file while his left hand crossed things off - the hand could at least make check marks - as he went down the list. “Pickles.” He could sense the drummer’s attention was drifting again.
“Yeah? Go on. I’m listenin.’”
“You weren’t.”
“Does it really matter?”
“Technically, legally, yes, I have to inform you of things so that if you’re asked if you were informed you can say yes. But no, in terms of understanding them, it doesn’t really matter. That’s my job.”
Pickles would have shrugged, but he was far too lazy to do so in his current position. “Do what yeh gatta do, chief.”
Charles continued with the details of the lawsuit, and all the adjoining complications with restraining orders, standing and expired. It was intense legal-ese even for him; Snakes and Barrels existed less as a band and more as a thread of conflicting contracts and residual deals. Charles made a comment to this effect when Pickles complained again about not being allowed to drift off (or away, in the pool itself).
“So we had some crappy managers,” Pickles said. “Dey were fun, d’ough.”
“Meaning they did cocaine with you.”
“And heroin. And dis one guy, he was like our manager fer like a week. Total speed freak. Did like his paperwork.”
“Yes. And none of it made sense.” Charles had copies of some of it and originals of others.
Pickles kicked his feet in the water to turn the raft around. “So everybody can’t be you. ‘n fact, I don’ think anyone can.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Ya wanna git high when we’re done wit’ dis?”
“Ah, no thank you. I have a lot of work to do.”
Pickles ‘hrmped.’ “Yeh, know, the guys think I’m still givin’ you stuff.”
“You were never ‘giving me stuff.’ You would come into my office and make it reek of pot while I took my prescribed pain medication. And technically, as your supplier, I give you stuff.”
“Don’t havta git all snooty.”
“I’m not getting snooty. Pickles, I assure you, I really am busy. I have to leave for LA tomorrow and things have to be ready by then. And since when do the guys care what you’re ‘giving me’ anyway?”
Pickles finished his joint and stubbed it out in the coaster attached to his raft. “Dey just, thought I was. Because you’ve been so mellow.”
“I’ve been mellow?”
“Fer you. Yeah.”
Charles raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.
“Yer not being obnoxious about the recording. I mean, you’ve been nice about it. And you didn’t get all upset when Snackers - “
“I can assure you, I was quite upset. I had the appropriate amount of concern for the incident, especially for my employees.”
“Well, yeh took it in stride.”
“Thank you.” At the time, he hadn’t thought much about it. Yes, it was a concern, and all the disability checks to pay out would mean a speedy death was just better for the company’s financials. But he hadn’t yelled at Nathan about it, even though this time it was clearly Nathan’s fault. He felt it wasn’t worth getting his blood up over it. Besides, Snackers clearly had a terrific sense of smell when it came to blood.
Pickles would not let it drop. “If yeh are on somethin’ - “
“I went through a period of injury and illness, Pickles. Now I’m better. End of conversation.” Since Pickles wasn’t good at taking cues when he was both drunk and high, Charles just spelled it out for him.
Because he sure as hell wasn’t going to spell out what was really going on.
********************************************
Angela finished work late. The concerts were booked, but there was a lot to do before the departure for LA, without even considering basic things like packing (she didn’t have a wide variety of clothing to consider anyway) and making sure things she had to do would run fine while she was gone. She finally found some time to spend in her room gathering essentials before being called into the boss’s office to go over the flight schedule and other necessities. Charles was still eating a very late dinner at his desk, and rattled off the various things on the schedule for the next few days without so much as looking at his computer’s date book. Theoretically, she was there so he didn’t have to keep so much in his head, but he rarely asked for a clarification on a person, place, or time.
“The upcoming concert dates aren’t announced, and I haven’t told William anything so he can’t leak them. But we should be prepared for that anyway.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have the file on the Dethklok Minute guy?”
“Yes, sir. His name is Skylar.”
“Seriously? That’s a terrible name. Are you sure it’s not stage?”
“I have his birth certificate.”
He didn’t look surprised. “And?”
“28 years old. He’s straight, single, has a clean criminal record except for charges of two counts of possession - regular and vehicular - in 2006. He did community service for it. Worked at a soup kitchen. Likes Thai food, but is allergic to peanuts. Owns a greyhound and is allergic to cats. Oh, and he only has two of his original teeth, both molars.”
“I’ll forward his contact information to Sarah, and I want my office to nudge him in the right direction.” By his office, he meant his “office,” not himself. It was an entity that existed to keep him distant from people he didn’t want to get involved with. “With some accompanying threats about being nice. Mild ones.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we’re done.” He closed his computer. “Oh, and I want you to help me out with this Law and Order episode.”
“No.”
“I have the spot saved.”
“I thought your DVR was full?”
“They’re streaming on Netflix now.”
“Shit.” She added, “The answer is still no.”
“The clip is maybe five minutes - “
“I didn’t know that show was so hard to figure out,” she said with a smirk. “If you’re wondering if whatever they do on that show is legally possible, or even logistically possible, the answer is definitely no.”
“Asking you to watch television is not exactly beyond the call of duty.”
“I think it is, sir.” But she wasn’t actually mad at him. The tone was more mocking. He would drop it soon. He didn’t have that much time to study the legal nuances of hour-long television dramas, anyway. “I should go back to my apartment and pack.” It was a threat, not an actual plan.
“Do you have a lot of clothing decisions to make?” Charles said. “Fine, fine, I’ll drop it. But it’s a good show.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Actually, it was Charles who had to pack. Not that he was making complex clothing decisions, either. He still refused to wear Kevlar, a subject she brought up again while sitting on his couch and watching him frantically try to decide between sidearms. “It’s too hot for a vest. You know what heat does to me.”
“And I know your chest looks like a sheet from a firing range,” she said, adding quickly at his stare, “but it’s still attractive. They’re interesting scars. Guys with scars are sexy.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.”
She did like to feel his scars. They had yet to cease to be interesting, especially because there always seemed to be a new one to find. He had a deep scar on the side of the ring finger on one hand that was so deep there was some nerve damage. She didn’t notice it until he showed her that he couldn’t completely tighten that finger into a ball like the others, or flex as far in the other direction. “A dinner knife is a bad way of removing a tattoo,” was his entire explanation.
Tonight, he did not want to be touched. He didn’t want to be alone, either, or he never would have let her in, but his body language, even with the stiff way he carried himself, spoke volumes. He nodded off with his iPad in hand, still set to a Financial Times article. She put it in the charger and turned off the light.
Her sleep was quiet and dreamless until she woke to the usual nudging and shivers of the man beside her. He wasn’t very big, so he didn’t hog space or impose on her even in his sleep, but she was sensitive to the vibrations of an increasingly agitated man. He was mumbling, too, but definitely not in English. Angela was still debating whether to wake him when he managed it himself, sitting straight up as whatever was in his brain trailed off. She reached out to take his shaking hand but he wiggled away from her. “Shit!”
“What?”
“Why didn’t I see it? Why am I so fucking stupid!” He scrambled out of bed, tossing covers aside, and stumbled to the wall safe. She’d never seen what was inside it - personal documents, she assumed - but he was so agitated that it took him several tries to open it, even with a simple keypad. He grabbed the documents inside and dumped them on the floor, spreading them out in a manic fashion. “Why - No, that can’t be it. It can’t be that simple.”
“Charles?”
He ignored her - or maybe just didn’t hear her - and knelt on the ground, tossing documents preserved in plastic sleeves aside. There were expensive folders and cheap manila ones, and a notebook she’d never seen before, the kind you would buy at the grocery store as a school supply.
Angela had one foot on the ground out of bed when he finally seemed to notice her presence. “Don’t!” He almost threw himself over the papers. “Don’t look! You can’t see this! You don’t know ... Stop fucking distracting me!”
“If you tell me!”
“I said to shut the fuck up!”
It was a cry of desperation, not anger, but she still didn’t know what to do about it. As he continued mumbling to himself and flipping through pages of the spiral notebook, she did slide out of bed, but didn’t go near the mess. Instead she found her robe, and his, so wouldn’t have to be sitting in the dark in a cold castle with just his boxers and an undershirt on. Maybe he was struggling so much because he couldn’t think straight enough to realize he didn’t have his glasses on, so she fetched them for him and he took them without a word of thanks. “Don’t look.”
“I’ll avert my eyes.” She had even less patience for his bullshit for multiple reasons, but mostly because it was the middle of the night and he was making himself sick over something he wouldn’t let her so much as glance at.
“The names. The fucking names!” He looked reading to pull his hair out over whatever train of thought was barreling through his head at full speed. “He has our names. Christ, I only give the Klokateers numbers!”
“What?”
“No.” He stood up. “You can’t see this. This - this is bad stuff.”
“Then shouldn’t I see it?” She was not as sympathetic as she normally was. His dismissive attitude, just on the edge of violence, made her irritated instead. “If it’s my life in ... someone’s ... hands, shouldn’t I have the right to know something? Or maybe that’s why your assistants die - because you don’t tell them shit!”
Charles’s eyes went wide, and it was hard to tell if he was still shaking from his dream or he was trembling in fury.
“What is this stuff? What the hell are you so obsessed about?” She kicked at the one folder that had strayed far enough to be in range of her foot. “It has to be about Dethklok or you wouldn’t spend so much time on it, and we’re the ones who will die for Dethklok - shouldn’t we know what we’re dying for? Shouldn’t we know what you died for?”
“I’m the only one who can know.”
“Why? Why, Charles? I want you to answer that question for me. And don’t say because I wouldn’t understand, because you know that I would. Or you don’t think very much of me.”
That might have been what he was going to say, because his mouth opened and then shut firmly.
“Do you know what we do when you’re being so secretive? We panic. Our lives don’t depend on Dethklok - they depend on you! Do you know what I went through when you disappeared? Do you have any idea how shitty my life became when you left the company in the hands of guys who go into a grocery store and can’t figure out how to come out with food? I felt like I gave up my career and my life for nothing, Charles. I gave up so much for Dethklok and I expected at least something back, even if it was some concert-related death, not panhandling on the streets. I was miserable and desperate - and I admit, suicidal - while you were off doing shit you can’t talk about and your own bodyguards are too afraid to discuss! And now you’re standing in the dark staring at paperwork and freaking out and you won’t let me help you even though it’s my fucking job description! Unless my job description is fucking you, which is not what I signed up for.” It was so long in coming she’d forgotten it, a speech that she would have never dared to give if she gave it any thought at all, but she didn’t. She was tired, not just because it was the middle of the night and she was overworked, but of him, and the secrets that made him wake up almost screaming, some of which were at his feet. “Let me help you.”
He looked down at his paperwork, binders, notebooks and folders and back up at her, his face askew in determination. “Get out.”
“Jesus Christ. Don’t be so fucking dramatic.”
“No.” He straightened up. “Get the fuck out of my room. Now.”
She only hesitated for a second. A split second was all it took. “Fine.” She grabbed her things - the phone and her keys on the bedstand, and her hood. “I will get out. I will leave you alone with your little psychosis - excuse me, your huge psychosis. And I will show up to work tomorrow with a smile you can’t see anyway and do my damn job because I’m a Gear, and that’s what I do. And you can continue to deal with your shrink and your meds and your issues the same way you’ve always done when you’re alone - poorly. Just try not to stop your psych drugs and go on a bender again. The deaths in Beijing were hard to cover up.”
The look on his face dissolved from fury to devastation, all in the seconds before she walked out, slamming the door behind her. It just couldn’t close fast enough or loudly enough, as she threw her suit jacket on over her robe (a lot of good that did) for the walk back to her apartment.
When she was finally home, in the tiny apartment that was the only thing that was truly hers anymore, the hood she removed was heavier than normal because it was soaked with tears.
T o Be Continued...
Author: DJ_the_Writer
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Cursing, Drugs, PTSD, off-screen sex
Pairings: Charles/OFC
Beta: wikdsushi
Characters: Charles, Pickles, OCs
Summary: Charles attempts to recover from his ordeal during a legal tussle in LA.
[ Start back at the beginning]
I know it's Nathan/Charles month but sorry, no Nathan in this one.
Chapter 7
Charles made it back to Mordhaus ahead of schedule. Angela was waiting for him in his office, where she relinquished control of his computer. “The only prolonged conversation I had was with the Gibson sale rep.”
“He thinks I’m a robot anyway,” Charles said with some relief. “Anything else?”
“There’s a message from your nephew on your personal line.”
“What does he want?”
“Fan day tickets. Comped, I assume.”
Charles disabled the answering system with a click and brought up his emails. “This is why you don’t tell relatives you work for Dethklok.”
Under her hood, Angela was probably smiling. She did not ask where he went or any follow-up questions about his disappearance, and he set about returning phone calls and resuming his normal schedule. This included a call to his nephew, who was very disappointed by his decision. Charles didn’t like to disappoint Sam, but he also wanted Sam to continue being alive.
“What about as a Bar Mitzvah present?”
“How is that going? The ah, lessons.”
“Hebrew is really hard. I’m working hard. I don’t want money from you. I just want tickets.”
Because the last thing this trust fund kid needed was money. “Then go buy the damn things.”
“Uh, I tried, but they’re like, super-hard to get. And I got booted from the ticket server when I entered my name in.”
Because Charles may or may not have put certain people on lists. But he didn’t say that. “I’m proud of you for taking on this ... challenge. And I will get you something suitable. But Fan Day is dangerous and to be honest, not all it’s cracked up to be. You’ve spent more time with the band than anyone who’s attended Fan Day and at much closer range.”
“But they’re gonna play a secret song!”
“And the secret song will leak on the internet a few days later. I recommend WikiKlok. Though I do not, um, officially recognize the legality of that site or encourage you to use it.”
“Do all lawyers talk like you?”
“Good ones do,” he said, which was pretty honest.
Sam was eventually talked out of it, or just out of being depressed about it, and he had homework to do anyway, or so he said. It was late afternoon in California now, and very late in British Columbia. It was time to close up shop, but he headed down to the library instead, with a folder of information he’d received from General Crozier.
He had some reading to do.
********************************************
Angela only saw Charles sporadically over the next few days. The buildup to the next trip to LA was increasing, with wild rumors spreading about the lawsuits (none of them true), and the Commander wanted everything squared away with the new gigs booked before he left. He also spent a great deal of time in band meetings, presumably reminding them to do their jobs and keep the empire running, as his genius could only generate so much revenue without the music to accompany it. She was still sleeping in his room (and with him) more often than not, but nothing was ever a constant, except that he was very, very busy.
She didn’t like being ambushed, either in the field or in the break room near the command center, which she supposed was now her field. Klokateer 82’s eyes bored into her through the triangle slits. Fine, she wasn’t afraid of him. She stared right back and continued sipping her coffee.
“This is about me sleeping with the Commander.” It was not a question. And 82 could get weirdly jittery sometimes, so it was better to get to the point.
“Yes.”
“And presumably, you have a problem with it.”
“...No.” He was searching for something in her, as if she was a file he could open and read. “Whatever the Commander does is his business.”
“Which is why we’re discussing it here, alone and without his knowledge.”
82 flinched. It was hard to make 82 flinch, so she took some pride in it. “He’s a very important man. With a lot of secrets. Ones you don’t know about, even if you think you do.”
“I don’t presume that I do. Or ever could.”
“There’s things I don’t even know.”
“Then how do you know about them?”
“What?”
“How do you know about the things that you don’t know?” OK, so 82 wasn’t a mental giant, but he had to be somewhat aware to last this long so high up on the ladder. Or maybe he was just a really, really good bodyguard.
“People disappear ... then show up again. Some of the retired numbers aren’t really retired.”
Angela wondered if there was anyone more aware than her of how much about Charles Ofdensen's people didn’t know. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re smart,” he said, a surprising admission for him, “and he likes you.” That was even more surprising. His opinion, not the obvious. “But if you go near some of the stuff he’s been working on, you’re going to get burned. You’re going to get killed - “
“People take that for granted around here.”
“ - and I wanted to say I warned you.”
“Not to get killed?”
“Not to get killed asking questions.”
“The boss would never do that,” she said, though she honestly couldn’t be sure. Almost, but not entirely.
“Not him. Other people. Bad people. So, you were warned.” He turned around and walked away, the conversation apparently over with Angela left to wonder who a trained killer at the top of the blood-soaked Dethklok ladder would consider “bad.”
She did not bring up the conversation with Charles that evening. He was engrossed in his own concerns. That was not to say he was completely unresponsive to her, or that he took her presence for granted - everything in his body language when she entered the room told her that - but occasionally, his thoughts would drift away and she would nudge him, knocking on his cast for having his head in the clouds. He needed comforting, not badgering, and there was a fine line to observe there.
“I have a lot on my mind,” he just said, and let that stand.
“You also have a lot of My Little Pony stickers on your elbow.”
He groaned. Very few people saw his exposed cast. “I am going to find the person who keeps supplying Toki with these packs and kill him. Because I was pretty sure I disposed of every last one.”
“Do you want me to actually do that?”
“No.” He didn’t have to think about it. “It makes Toki happy. I suspect he actually thinks they have some healing qualities, and the less he worries about me, the better.”
Perhaps in an unconscious (or very conscious) attempt to impress her, Charles had a couple things in his room to make it look more lived in, aside from her often strewn clothing of course. He still could clean for five minutes and qualify the room for the cover of Uninhabited Bedrooms Monthly, but there were some pictures on the wall, all family, and a new one on his bed stand. She’d never seen it before, but he didn’t seem bothered when she plucked it off the stand. It was in a hospital, with his mother holding an infant in a pink blanket, his father behind her, and what she assumed was a toddler version of Charles on the bed beside a bald teenager. It was not the ideal wall photo, with Mrs. Ofdensen looking exhausted and appropriately disheveled, and little Charles was squinting, but it had a very expensive frame.
“Is this your brother?” It was a leading question; she didn’t know who else the other boy could be. She was also avoiding using his name, which she wasn’t sure how to pronounce correctly.
“Yes.” He didn’t sit up to look at it with her. “It’s the only picture of all five of us. He died two months later.” He added, the mind reader that he was, “It’s pronounced EYE-vin.”
“I didn’t say - “
“It’s a hard name to pronounce. The consonants are very misleading.” His voice was half-mumbled because he was buried under the blankets. “I don’t remember him at all. I just remember what his room looked like. And his funeral.”
She put the picture in its place.
“I’m sorry if I made you think about your brother.”
“You didn’t,” she replied. “How do you know about my brother?”
“I finally got around to reading your file.” In another other situation, it would have been creepy, but it wasn’t. “I know policy is no contact with your family, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep track of them. He gets out in, what, five years?”
“Then he’ll just go back in on a parole violation. But he’ll be sick for awhile before he does,” Angela said, and now she did think about Ray, someone she desperately tried not to think about when her name was still legally Angela and she was still legally alive. “I blame you.”
Charles repositioned himself so he was facing her, even though she knew that without his glasses, he couldn’t see much of her. “Me?”
“You Republicans and your crappy Reaganite opinions on hospitalizing the poor. So now he has to go to jail to get help.”
“What makes you think I’m a Republican? Wait, stupid question. But I’m not a straight-ticket voter.” He looked a little relieved that she didn’t actually blame him. It wasn’t his fault that her brother had been in and out of jails since he was sixteen for minor crimes that just masked rather severe schizophrenia. In prison, he got medicine. When he was released for good behavior (he was very well-behaved when medicated), he stopped taking his medicine, committed some minor violation, and went back in.
Angela watched the process close up when she lived in Detroit, and tried to do something about it, but he was difficult to deal with when he was sick and her resources were limited. “Some people can’t be fixed,” she said. “Is that cruel?”
“I have a whole different concept of cruel,” Charles admitted. “But on a personal level, no, it’s not cruel. It’s honest. Life can be very cruel. When he gets out, the corporation can help him.”
Charles did not offer these favors lightly - not to employees. She was surprised. “I’m not supposed to have any contact with him,” Angela said.
“I didn’t say you should fly in and take him out to lunch. I said the corporation can help him.” He reached out and took her hand. “Don’t be so shocked. You know we have the best health plan in the world for our employees and their families.”
“If they survive.”
“Big ‘if’ there, but yes.”
It occurred to her that Charles might have a reason for being sympathetic to the hospitalized, or the mentally ill who should be hospitalized, given his recent experiences, but she decided not to bring it up. She wasn’t the one who was mental.
********************************************
Mordland had many pools. Not all of them were filled with blood, or a cheaper blood substitute. It wasn’t economical and it made sense to have a few of the pools actually usable. Of the actual band members, Pickles got the most use, floating around on a raft with an appropriate beach cocktail in one hand and a joint in the other.
Charles sat on a deck chair by the edge, his cast arm holding down the file while his left hand crossed things off - the hand could at least make check marks - as he went down the list. “Pickles.” He could sense the drummer’s attention was drifting again.
“Yeah? Go on. I’m listenin.’”
“You weren’t.”
“Does it really matter?”
“Technically, legally, yes, I have to inform you of things so that if you’re asked if you were informed you can say yes. But no, in terms of understanding them, it doesn’t really matter. That’s my job.”
Pickles would have shrugged, but he was far too lazy to do so in his current position. “Do what yeh gatta do, chief.”
Charles continued with the details of the lawsuit, and all the adjoining complications with restraining orders, standing and expired. It was intense legal-ese even for him; Snakes and Barrels existed less as a band and more as a thread of conflicting contracts and residual deals. Charles made a comment to this effect when Pickles complained again about not being allowed to drift off (or away, in the pool itself).
“So we had some crappy managers,” Pickles said. “Dey were fun, d’ough.”
“Meaning they did cocaine with you.”
“And heroin. And dis one guy, he was like our manager fer like a week. Total speed freak. Did like his paperwork.”
“Yes. And none of it made sense.” Charles had copies of some of it and originals of others.
Pickles kicked his feet in the water to turn the raft around. “So everybody can’t be you. ‘n fact, I don’ think anyone can.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Ya wanna git high when we’re done wit’ dis?”
“Ah, no thank you. I have a lot of work to do.”
Pickles ‘hrmped.’ “Yeh, know, the guys think I’m still givin’ you stuff.”
“You were never ‘giving me stuff.’ You would come into my office and make it reek of pot while I took my prescribed pain medication. And technically, as your supplier, I give you stuff.”
“Don’t havta git all snooty.”
“I’m not getting snooty. Pickles, I assure you, I really am busy. I have to leave for LA tomorrow and things have to be ready by then. And since when do the guys care what you’re ‘giving me’ anyway?”
Pickles finished his joint and stubbed it out in the coaster attached to his raft. “Dey just, thought I was. Because you’ve been so mellow.”
“I’ve been mellow?”
“Fer you. Yeah.”
Charles raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.
“Yer not being obnoxious about the recording. I mean, you’ve been nice about it. And you didn’t get all upset when Snackers - “
“I can assure you, I was quite upset. I had the appropriate amount of concern for the incident, especially for my employees.”
“Well, yeh took it in stride.”
“Thank you.” At the time, he hadn’t thought much about it. Yes, it was a concern, and all the disability checks to pay out would mean a speedy death was just better for the company’s financials. But he hadn’t yelled at Nathan about it, even though this time it was clearly Nathan’s fault. He felt it wasn’t worth getting his blood up over it. Besides, Snackers clearly had a terrific sense of smell when it came to blood.
Pickles would not let it drop. “If yeh are on somethin’ - “
“I went through a period of injury and illness, Pickles. Now I’m better. End of conversation.” Since Pickles wasn’t good at taking cues when he was both drunk and high, Charles just spelled it out for him.
Because he sure as hell wasn’t going to spell out what was really going on.
********************************************
Angela finished work late. The concerts were booked, but there was a lot to do before the departure for LA, without even considering basic things like packing (she didn’t have a wide variety of clothing to consider anyway) and making sure things she had to do would run fine while she was gone. She finally found some time to spend in her room gathering essentials before being called into the boss’s office to go over the flight schedule and other necessities. Charles was still eating a very late dinner at his desk, and rattled off the various things on the schedule for the next few days without so much as looking at his computer’s date book. Theoretically, she was there so he didn’t have to keep so much in his head, but he rarely asked for a clarification on a person, place, or time.
“The upcoming concert dates aren’t announced, and I haven’t told William anything so he can’t leak them. But we should be prepared for that anyway.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have the file on the Dethklok Minute guy?”
“Yes, sir. His name is Skylar.”
“Seriously? That’s a terrible name. Are you sure it’s not stage?”
“I have his birth certificate.”
He didn’t look surprised. “And?”
“28 years old. He’s straight, single, has a clean criminal record except for charges of two counts of possession - regular and vehicular - in 2006. He did community service for it. Worked at a soup kitchen. Likes Thai food, but is allergic to peanuts. Owns a greyhound and is allergic to cats. Oh, and he only has two of his original teeth, both molars.”
“I’ll forward his contact information to Sarah, and I want my office to nudge him in the right direction.” By his office, he meant his “office,” not himself. It was an entity that existed to keep him distant from people he didn’t want to get involved with. “With some accompanying threats about being nice. Mild ones.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we’re done.” He closed his computer. “Oh, and I want you to help me out with this Law and Order episode.”
“No.”
“I have the spot saved.”
“I thought your DVR was full?”
“They’re streaming on Netflix now.”
“Shit.” She added, “The answer is still no.”
“The clip is maybe five minutes - “
“I didn’t know that show was so hard to figure out,” she said with a smirk. “If you’re wondering if whatever they do on that show is legally possible, or even logistically possible, the answer is definitely no.”
“Asking you to watch television is not exactly beyond the call of duty.”
“I think it is, sir.” But she wasn’t actually mad at him. The tone was more mocking. He would drop it soon. He didn’t have that much time to study the legal nuances of hour-long television dramas, anyway. “I should go back to my apartment and pack.” It was a threat, not an actual plan.
“Do you have a lot of clothing decisions to make?” Charles said. “Fine, fine, I’ll drop it. But it’s a good show.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Actually, it was Charles who had to pack. Not that he was making complex clothing decisions, either. He still refused to wear Kevlar, a subject she brought up again while sitting on his couch and watching him frantically try to decide between sidearms. “It’s too hot for a vest. You know what heat does to me.”
“And I know your chest looks like a sheet from a firing range,” she said, adding quickly at his stare, “but it’s still attractive. They’re interesting scars. Guys with scars are sexy.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.”
She did like to feel his scars. They had yet to cease to be interesting, especially because there always seemed to be a new one to find. He had a deep scar on the side of the ring finger on one hand that was so deep there was some nerve damage. She didn’t notice it until he showed her that he couldn’t completely tighten that finger into a ball like the others, or flex as far in the other direction. “A dinner knife is a bad way of removing a tattoo,” was his entire explanation.
Tonight, he did not want to be touched. He didn’t want to be alone, either, or he never would have let her in, but his body language, even with the stiff way he carried himself, spoke volumes. He nodded off with his iPad in hand, still set to a Financial Times article. She put it in the charger and turned off the light.
Her sleep was quiet and dreamless until she woke to the usual nudging and shivers of the man beside her. He wasn’t very big, so he didn’t hog space or impose on her even in his sleep, but she was sensitive to the vibrations of an increasingly agitated man. He was mumbling, too, but definitely not in English. Angela was still debating whether to wake him when he managed it himself, sitting straight up as whatever was in his brain trailed off. She reached out to take his shaking hand but he wiggled away from her. “Shit!”
“What?”
“Why didn’t I see it? Why am I so fucking stupid!” He scrambled out of bed, tossing covers aside, and stumbled to the wall safe. She’d never seen what was inside it - personal documents, she assumed - but he was so agitated that it took him several tries to open it, even with a simple keypad. He grabbed the documents inside and dumped them on the floor, spreading them out in a manic fashion. “Why - No, that can’t be it. It can’t be that simple.”
“Charles?”
He ignored her - or maybe just didn’t hear her - and knelt on the ground, tossing documents preserved in plastic sleeves aside. There were expensive folders and cheap manila ones, and a notebook she’d never seen before, the kind you would buy at the grocery store as a school supply.
Angela had one foot on the ground out of bed when he finally seemed to notice her presence. “Don’t!” He almost threw himself over the papers. “Don’t look! You can’t see this! You don’t know ... Stop fucking distracting me!”
“If you tell me!”
“I said to shut the fuck up!”
It was a cry of desperation, not anger, but she still didn’t know what to do about it. As he continued mumbling to himself and flipping through pages of the spiral notebook, she did slide out of bed, but didn’t go near the mess. Instead she found her robe, and his, so wouldn’t have to be sitting in the dark in a cold castle with just his boxers and an undershirt on. Maybe he was struggling so much because he couldn’t think straight enough to realize he didn’t have his glasses on, so she fetched them for him and he took them without a word of thanks. “Don’t look.”
“I’ll avert my eyes.” She had even less patience for his bullshit for multiple reasons, but mostly because it was the middle of the night and he was making himself sick over something he wouldn’t let her so much as glance at.
“The names. The fucking names!” He looked reading to pull his hair out over whatever train of thought was barreling through his head at full speed. “He has our names. Christ, I only give the Klokateers numbers!”
“What?”
“No.” He stood up. “You can’t see this. This - this is bad stuff.”
“Then shouldn’t I see it?” She was not as sympathetic as she normally was. His dismissive attitude, just on the edge of violence, made her irritated instead. “If it’s my life in ... someone’s ... hands, shouldn’t I have the right to know something? Or maybe that’s why your assistants die - because you don’t tell them shit!”
Charles’s eyes went wide, and it was hard to tell if he was still shaking from his dream or he was trembling in fury.
“What is this stuff? What the hell are you so obsessed about?” She kicked at the one folder that had strayed far enough to be in range of her foot. “It has to be about Dethklok or you wouldn’t spend so much time on it, and we’re the ones who will die for Dethklok - shouldn’t we know what we’re dying for? Shouldn’t we know what you died for?”
“I’m the only one who can know.”
“Why? Why, Charles? I want you to answer that question for me. And don’t say because I wouldn’t understand, because you know that I would. Or you don’t think very much of me.”
That might have been what he was going to say, because his mouth opened and then shut firmly.
“Do you know what we do when you’re being so secretive? We panic. Our lives don’t depend on Dethklok - they depend on you! Do you know what I went through when you disappeared? Do you have any idea how shitty my life became when you left the company in the hands of guys who go into a grocery store and can’t figure out how to come out with food? I felt like I gave up my career and my life for nothing, Charles. I gave up so much for Dethklok and I expected at least something back, even if it was some concert-related death, not panhandling on the streets. I was miserable and desperate - and I admit, suicidal - while you were off doing shit you can’t talk about and your own bodyguards are too afraid to discuss! And now you’re standing in the dark staring at paperwork and freaking out and you won’t let me help you even though it’s my fucking job description! Unless my job description is fucking you, which is not what I signed up for.” It was so long in coming she’d forgotten it, a speech that she would have never dared to give if she gave it any thought at all, but she didn’t. She was tired, not just because it was the middle of the night and she was overworked, but of him, and the secrets that made him wake up almost screaming, some of which were at his feet. “Let me help you.”
He looked down at his paperwork, binders, notebooks and folders and back up at her, his face askew in determination. “Get out.”
“Jesus Christ. Don’t be so fucking dramatic.”
“No.” He straightened up. “Get the fuck out of my room. Now.”
She only hesitated for a second. A split second was all it took. “Fine.” She grabbed her things - the phone and her keys on the bedstand, and her hood. “I will get out. I will leave you alone with your little psychosis - excuse me, your huge psychosis. And I will show up to work tomorrow with a smile you can’t see anyway and do my damn job because I’m a Gear, and that’s what I do. And you can continue to deal with your shrink and your meds and your issues the same way you’ve always done when you’re alone - poorly. Just try not to stop your psych drugs and go on a bender again. The deaths in Beijing were hard to cover up.”
The look on his face dissolved from fury to devastation, all in the seconds before she walked out, slamming the door behind her. It just couldn’t close fast enough or loudly enough, as she threw her suit jacket on over her robe (a lot of good that did) for the walk back to her apartment.
When she was finally home, in the tiny apartment that was the only thing that was truly hers anymore, the hood she removed was heavier than normal because it was soaked with tears.
T o Be Continued...