Years to Learn Her Trade, Parker, PG
Title: Years To Learn Her Trade
Author: annearchy
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG
Length: 5,055 words
Warnings: A couple of swear words and some implied violence. Spoilers through episode 307.
Prompt: 86) You are about to begin the hero's journey. Travel well on the quest. A life of More is your birthright. Know the vast resources that reside in you and are provided for you in the world. You have raised the battle cry of There Must Be More Than This. -- Judith Wright (1915-2000), Australian poet, environmentalist, critic, and advocate of aboriginal land rights.
Summary: Before there was a Leverage Consulting & Associates, there was a girl who called herself Parker. This might be the story of how she became The Thief.
Author's Notes: “Even a thief takes ten years to learn his trade” - Japanese proverb
Includes a recognizable quote from the movie/TV series KUNG FU and several lines of dialogue from Leverage Season 1. This is my version of how Parker got to be Parker. While most of the story takes place prior to The Nigerian Job (ep 101), the catalyst for much of my take on Parker was The Inside Job (ep 303). Certain things may be recognizable as Leverage canon, while others come strictly from my imagination. Thanks to avidbeader for beta-reading and to Beth Riesgraf and the writers of Leverage for creating such a wonderful, quirky character.
Years To Learn Her Trade
The hardest thing to get used to was being with other people.
Parker had been with other people before, of course, in that sucky orphanage and the two really sucky foster homes. As she entered her teens, she spent plenty of time with Archie, the man she considered her father, the man who taught her most of what she knew.
She just wasn’t used to spending so much time with people who cared about her, who seemed to need her.
Well, maybe they just needed her talents. She was, after all, a damned good thief. Maybe the best, after Archie.
She’d never intended to get in this deep with Nate Ford and his crew. Leverage Consulting & Associates was what Nate called his new “business”. For him the work they were doing was very, very personal. Parker wasn’t sure what had broken up Nate’s marriage. Whether it was his need for alcohol, or the way the insurance company had shafted Nate and his wife by refusing to pay for the treatment that would have saved their son’s life. She’d cringed when she heard the story. Parker couldn’t stand to see children suffer.
It hit too close to home.
When she was really little there had been her and Frank and Mommy and Daddy. Then, when she was about four, Frank was riding his bike near the town gravel pit and went off the edge; he fell to the bottom of the pit and died. Parker was sad, and so was Mommy. Daddy mostly seemed angry all the time. Sometimes, when he drank too much, he hit Parker. She cried but Mommy didn’t help her. The only thing that helped was holding onto her big stuffed bunny. When she was six, the teacher at the tiny school called the county child welfare office. Someone came and took Parker away and put her in a foster home.
Parker stayed in that little house in Illinois for more than a year. Then Mommy and Daddy showed up and took her away with them. They were moving to Kansas City because Daddy was starting a new job there. When they had driven a long way, almost to Kansas City, someone ran a stop sign on the highway and hit their car. Mommy and Daddy were killed. Parker went to a hospital for awhile, then she was sent to a big, ugly building with a lot of other kids who had no parents either -- an orphanage.
At least she still had Bunny. The other kids at the orphanage would beg her to let them hold him, but she’d never let anyone else get near him. She couldn’t remember how long she’d been there but when they discovered her stealing from the other children, the orphanage staff sent her to live with foster parents named Mr. and Mrs. Brachman.
Mr. Brachman was even worse than the people who ran the orphanage. He and his wife were sort of stupid, though, leaving money and personal stuff lying around the house; didn’t they know she had trouble keeping her hands off anything? Parker couldn’t help herself. If there was money on a table (or in the sofa cushions, or in the pocket of Mr. Brachman’s pants hung on the end of his bed) Parker didn’t even think about it; her hand went to where the money was. Mr. Brachman finally got really, really mad about the stealing.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” he yelled at her one day. “C’mon already. Be a good girl or, I don’t know, a better thief.”
He took Bunny away and practically dared her to steal him back.
She showed Mr. Brachman. She was so angry she lit a match in the basement, near a pipe that led to the water heater. Then she walked out of the house, as fast as she could, with Bunny.
It was too bad his wife died in the explosion too.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
After that, Parker became a street rat. She’d left the foster home with just Bunny and the clothes on her back. She didn’t need much food, never had.
“For a kid with such a high metabolism, you sure don’t eat much,” Mrs. Brachman had said.
“Just as well,” her husband had grunted back, in between swallows of beer. “We’ll clear more on the foster care allowance.”
Parker really hated that man.
When she started living on the street, Parker never went hungry. There was always plenty of leftover food in Kansas City, especially around the restaurants. She liked to hang out in places where there were lots of kids; no one would notice one extra, skinny girl. She had a knack for finding spare change in the coin returns at the game arcades. And sometimes she just slipped her hand in someone’s jacket and found money without the person knowing it.
During the months after the explosion, she drifted around the city, somehow staying ahead of the Child Welfare people she knew were searching for her. Mrs. Rattigan, for one. The old hag suited her name - short and plump, with a long, pointy nose jutting from a fat, round face, her hair slicked back into an ugly bun. Parked hated her too, for sending her to live with the Brachmans. At night, when Parker huddled in a loft in a warehouse or in empty boxes behind a supermarket, she thought of Mrs. Rattigan’s rat face, how her beady little eyes must be scrunched up as she talked with the police about the skinny little blonde girl who was always causing trouble.
When she saw her own face on a poster for a missing child, Parker left Kansas City. Even if she wanted to go there, the orphanage wouldn’t take her back. No foster home would take her, she was sure, especially not one with nice parents-not that any nice parents would want a child thief who had blown up her previous foster parents.
It was 1989. Parker was ten years old.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
She had always been good at getting into tight spaces and out of tight spots. She was tall for her age, and slender. She knew how to hide in the middle of huge racks and carousels full of clothes. Later in the day, as Wal-Mart or Target or Dillard’s was closing, she could sneak into the warehouse and hide overnight. She learned early how to pick locks; as she moved around to different states (usually by hiding inside trucks), always avoiding the authorities, her skills at lock-picking grew along with her collection of thieving tools. She never carried more than one (stolen) duffel bag with her, and besides Bunny and the prized tools, that duffel never held more than two changes of clothes. After all, how many black leggings, hooded sweatshirts, gloves and knit caps did a girl need?
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Parker was in Brooklyn, New York, when she met Archie. She was thirteen then, loitering down the street from a pawn shop, when she spotted him. Tall, handsome, classy-looking, with gray hair and an expensive-looking top coat.
He looked like a good mark. Parker decided to pick his pocket.
She started following him, staying back about thirty paces, always keeping him in sight as he turned corners. After five or six blocks, she spotted him standing in front of a jewelry store, admiring a diamond necklace in the window. As she brushed past his back and tried to reach into his pocket, the man grabbed her wrist without looking back at her.
“OW!!”
His hand was tight on her wrist, and Parker was surprised at being caught. The man wouldn’t let go of her wrist. Parker squirmed, trying to wiggle away, and glared up at him. “Guess you’re gonna call the cops now.”
The man looked down at her. His face seemed blank, but Parker had never been good at figuring what was in people’s heads, least of all now.
“No, I don’t think I will,” he said finally. “You look like you could use a good meal. May I buy you lunch?”
She stared at him for a moment; no one had ever taken her out to lunch, or to any other meal. “Um, yeah, sure.”
He released his grip on Parker, and she walked next to him for three blocks, resisting the urge to slide her hand into his pocket, until they reached a small restaurant with a red awning. Calavacchia’s, the sign said. The man opened the door and stood back. It took Parker a few seconds to realize that he wanted her to go in ahead of him.
A dark-haired younger man greeted them. “Your usual table, Mr. Leach?”
“Yes, Alfred, thank you.”
Alfred showed them to a table in a quiet corner and gave them menus.
“Get whatever you’d like,” Mr. Leach told her. As Parker opened her menu, she felt like it was Christmas - or what she though a kid should feel like on Christmas; she couldn’t remember ever having one.
When they’d ordered and were waiting for their meals to arrive, Parker felt Mr. Leach’s eyes on her. She looked down, hands gripping the edge of her seat, trying not to squirm. She knew adults didn’t like squirming kids.
“So, my name is Archie Leach,” he said. “And you are --”
“Parker. Just Parker.”
Archie raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen your face on a missing child poster.”
A bitter taste trickled down Parker’s throat. She’d been found out. He was just being nice to her before he shipped her back to Kansas City.
“I really am not going to contact the police,” he said, as if reading her mind.
She looked up, relieved. “You’re not?”
“No, I’m not.” Archie Leach leaned over the table, as if to tell her a secret. “They don’t like me much either, truth be told. So it’s better for both of us if they don’t know that I know you’re here.”
Better for both of us... “Are you in trouble too?”
Archie Leach lowered his voice. “You could say that.” A moment later Alfred arrived with Parker’s lasagna, Archie’s pesto linguine and two large iced teas. “Let’s talk about that later. Right now we’ll eat.”
After lunch, Archie and Parker walked to a sort of run-down part of Brooklyn, the sort of place the Child Welfare workers might call “seedy”. The buildings were much bigger and dirtier than those near the restaurant and some of them had broken windows. They reminded Parker of the warehouses where she crashed in Kansas City.
Suddenly Archie stopped, pulled out a key and opened a door. “This is mine,” he said, ushering her inside.
Parker had been to a museum once before, on a field trip with the orphanage school. Archie’s warehouse reminded her of that museum. It was full of vases and paintings, lots of jewelry, some small, glittery statues - and about a gazillion jewels.
“Fuck.” Then, “Sorry.”
For the first time since she’d met him earlier that day, Archie Leach smiled. “Not to worry, Parker. I’ve been known to swear a time or two myself. And if I do say so, this is a very impressive stash.”
He waited a second. A thought began to form in her mind, but before she could get the words out, he added, “I’m a thief too. As you can see, I’ve amassed quite a large collection here. None of these actually belongs to me. Some I stole myself. Others are in transit, you might say, until I find the right time to fence them.”
So Archie was a big-time thief, and a fence. Now Parker was really curious. “So why are you telling me all this?”
Again she had trouble reading the look on his face. “I’ve been trying to find a protégé, an apprentice if you will. Someone to learn the craft from me. Someone to assist my business endeavors for the next several years.”
Parker stared at him, not knowing what to say.
“You’re the sort of person I’ve been looking for,” Archie went on. “Very young, slender, not a future beauty queen. The sort that doesn’t attract attention. Are you at all athletic?”
“Athletic enough.” Parker did a cartwheel, then a back walkover. When she was eight or nine years old, a gymnastics teacher had come to the orphanage once a week to teach some of the kids who’d shown an interest. Those gymnastics lessons were almost the only thing that made her happy back then, and now she was really glad she had taken them and continued to practice those skills.
Archie looked impressed. “Excellent. And I assume you’ve no fear of heights. What about enclosed spaces? Do you get in and out easily?”
“Piece of cake.” Actually, she was afraid of tiny spaces with close walls -- but she didn’t want him to know. He was offering her an opportunity to do exciting things. She’d have to learn, somehow, to get past that particular fear. She was starting to feel more at ease with him now. He was a thief, like her, only much older and - she assumed based on the contents of the warehouse - much, much better. She gave him a short history of what she’d been up to since she walked away from the exploding foster home. When Parker finished telling her story, Archie grinned.
“You have the makings of a brilliant thief,” he said, surprising Parker by taking both of her hands in his.
She pulled her hands away quickly, not sure what she was supposed to do next.
“I’m sorry,” he said, just as quickly. “This must be very confusing for you. Parker, I want to teach you what I know. You’ll be my student and this-“ he waved a hand at the contents of the warehouse - “will be your classroom as well as your living quarters.”
“You want me to live here? Don’t you have room at your place?” She could imagine where Archie lived: A big house, with lots of grass and a fence and a couple of dogs. “I don’t eat much, and I don’t need much room to sleep in.”
“First of all, you should not be running off willy-nilly to live with a man old enough - almost old enough to be your grandfather,” he insisted. “And second of all, I have a family. A wife, plus two sons in college and a daughter in high school. They think I’m an accountant for an international corporation. Surely you can see that it’s impossible for you to come home with me.”
Parker pouted. “I guess so.”
“Very good. There’s a loft upstairs” - Archie pointed toward one corner of the warehouse, near the roof - “with a bedroom, a bathroom and a small kitchen. I’ll make sure you have whatever you need. Food, clothes, a radio, a TV, books - just ask. I’m not always in town - sometimes my ‘business’ takes me overseas. But when I am in New York, I’ll visit every day. And once a week I’ll come by just to tutor you in the finer aspects of thievery. This won’t be a permanent situation, of course, but you’ll live here for the foreseeable future.”
After that moment, Parker never lived on the street again. The next day Archie delivered a color TV, an AM-FM radio and several bags of food. As Parker didn’t know how to cook, he brought lots of frozen foods that she could pop into the oven or the microwave, as well as several boxes of cereal. Parker liked the Rocket Os cereal better than anything else. She spent some time each day exploring the warehouse, admiring and sometimes touching the many beautiful objects and trying to imagine where and how they’d been stolen. At the back of the warehouse, though, was a room that was locked tight. Naturally Parker wanted to get into this room most of all.
“Patience, young grasshopper,” he said whenever she would ask to get in.
She had to wait quite a while. Finally, three months after she arrived, Archie allowed her into the forbidden place. “This room is very special,” he said, unlocking the door and leading her inside. The room was a long, high rectangle with black walls. At the other end was a high table that held a large rock. No, a huge diamond... As Parker moved slowly toward the stone, red lights criss-crossed the space like slender threads. She quickly backed up.
“This is the type of burglar alarm you’ll encounter in museums and the finest jewelry collections,” Archie explained. “Your job is to cross the room, retrieve the diamond and bring it to me without tripping the alarm. Use everything you know and you’ll get there.”
Biting her lip, she estimated her chances. “Yes, sir.”
The first few times she tried, Parker failed miserably. When it occurred to her to use her gymnastics skills, she made it farther across the room.
“Well done, kiddo,” Archie said encouragingly. “That’s enough for today. Keep practicing that back walkover and you’ll nail this soon.”
And then he was gone. No big goodbyes, no hugs, none of that mushy stuff. Parker hadn’t had a big, hard hug since before her mother died, and never at the orphanage or the foster homes, so she hadn’t expected it from Archie Leach either. Not really.
Two weeks later, after hours of practice in the loft, she crossed the room, retrieved the diamond (a heavy and convincing fake, she eventually learned) and brought it to Archie without setting off the alarm. As a reward, he gave her a thousand dollars in crisp $100 bills. “There’ll be more when you’ve completed an actual job. Much more.”
Parker grinned. She liked money. She would rather have money than the things it could buy. After Archie left, she pulled out a trunk from under the bed and put the money inside, right next to Bunny. She was safe now. Bunny was safe too. And she was sure there would be a lot more money. She’d never had friends. She hadn’t been to school in more than three years. But she’d never liked school anyway, and she really didn’t know how to make friends. People were confusing and messy. Money wasn’t.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
She stayed in Archie’s loft, under his paternal eye, for almost eight years. In the beginning, in the early 1990s, airline security wasn’t tight. They sometimes flew first-class to London or Brasilia or wherever the next heist was going down. Archie had many aliases, and Parker always traveled as his daughter. No one blinked an eye back then.
During her time with Archie, Parker traveled around the world four and three-quarter times. She had a big world atlas in her loft, and by the late 1990s she also had a computer and an Internet connection. She’d never been to high school but she probably knew more world geography than any of the kids she’d known in the orphanage. He bought a computer program to help her learn Spanish, which came in handy during their travels. She never spent enough time abroad to learn much about the local cultures, but at least she could ask for direction to el baño in Mexico, Argentina or Puerto Rico.
By the time she was twenty, she was wanted in six countries. She was lucky she got out of Yemen alive.
On her twenty-first birthday, Archie took her back to Calavacchia’s for dinner. She’d gone there many times over the years, usually without him, just because she loved the food. The fact that Archie chose this particular occasion to take her to dinner at this restaurant didn’t set off any alarms for Parker. She still had trouble figuring out what was in his head, even after all those years with him.
When they’d finished their meals, Archie took a long sip from his glass of Grappa. “So, kiddo, this is the end of the line for your living arrangement.”
He looked solemn, like a priest she had seen at the orphanage when she was little and one of the ancient nuns had died.
“What do you mean?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Parker - think back to when we met. I never intended this to be a permanent situation. As I’m neither your parent nor your legal guardian, I’ve never had any official responsibility for you. But as your de facto guardian, I’ve taken care of you for almost eight years. However, now you’re a legal adult. You can and should take care of yourself without any help from me. Not to mention you’ve become a damn fine thief. Let’s face it, kiddo, you don’t need me any more. I’ve taught you everything I know. For a rich person, you live a very Spartan lifestyle, and you have more money socked away than most people can dream of.” He pursed his lips, seeming to forget for a moment that she was even there. “You can make it on your own, very well, I’m sure. So if you don’t mind, I’d like you to clear out of the loft by Sunday.”
“By Sunday... I...” She didn’t know what to say. Archie wanted her to leave. “Sunday’s only three days from now.”
“Shouldn’t take you long to pack up your things,” he said. “I know you like to travel light. I can help you move that day, if you’d like.” Opening his briefcase, he pulled out a newspaper page and handed it to Parker; the page had several items circled. “I thought you might like to move to a bigger loft. I’ve marked several in East Williamsburg and Bushwick that might work for you.”
Parker stared at the newspaper. She had trouble putting a name on how she felt. Abandoned, maybe. She respected Archie; she was grateful for what he had taught her, the traveling, the nice things, especially the money. But now she was glad he’d never taken her to his home. In the end he probably would have tossed her out of there too, and it would have felt like being thrown out by her father.
“No, sir, that won’t be necessary,” she said finally in a hoarse voice. She was, as he’d said, an adult now. “I’ll handle it myself. But thanks for offering.”
“I want you to know,” Archie said slowly, “that I really do care about you, kiddo. In many ways you’re like a daughter to me. But this is the right time, for you as well as for me, to let you test your wings on your own. You’re already well-known and highly regarded among those who might want to use your services. You’ll do fine without me. Don’t worry, kiddo; you’ll see me again some time. Just not in the near future.”
With that Archie stood up and uffled Parker’s hair; he walked out the restaurant and, as far as she knew, out of her life.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Parked moved into a loft in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the following Sunday. She used one of her fake IDs to rent the loft and a small van to transport her few belongings, including her clothes, work tools and a futon. It was the way she had to live in the regular world, the world that didn’t hire her to boost something, break and enter, or do a heist. To her clients she was simply Parker, the young blonde who could pick any lock, break into any building, steal pretty much anything that could be stolen.
The problem with using aliases and fake IDs, of course, was that she had so many of them; she needed them for business-related activities like buying airfare and renting cars and hotel rooms. Because she had to be Parker for her clients, she couldn’t be that person for anyone else. So when she wasn’t off doing a job, she was a homebody, a loner, which was easier than trying to juggle aliases. She still had dinner alone at Calavacchia’s a couple times each month. There was no boyfriend, never had been. It didn’t really matter to Parker anyway; she never said the right things to people, and he would only leave her in the end.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
She’d been living and working on her own for more than seven years when she got a call from a Victor Dubenich, the CEO of a major manufacturer of aeronautical equipment. One of his competitors had stolen some plans for a new airplane from Dubenich’s company. It was industrial sabotage, he said, not the sort of thing he could easily take to the police. He’d also hired a grifter named Sophie Devereaux, a hacker named Alec Hardison, a retrieval specialist (Parker thought he was a hitter) named Eliot Spencer -- and a retired insurance investigator named Nathan Ford. Parker remembered Ford; he’d tried to track her down after she stole some paintings from a gallery in Russia.
Dubenich wanted Ford’s crew to steal the plans back, which would harm not only his competitor but also the company that insured the plans -- the same insurance company that had denied Ford’s young son medical treatment that would have saved his life. When they returned the plans to Dubenich, each member of the team would get $300,000. Parker wanted the money, but she also wanted to get back at the insurance company. She hated when children suffered. So she did something she hadn’t done since Archie walked away -- she worked with other people, instead of alone.
After being alone for so long, it was really weird to spend so much time with the four of them. Nate brooded about things and drank too much. Eliot brooded too and shot snarky remarks at Hardison, who seemed the happiest of the five of them, and at Sophie, who seemed to worry a lot about Nate. Getting Dubenich’s plans back was slightly trickier than she’d expected; working with four other people meant she had to rely on them to get their parts right, on top of doing her own. It had been a long time since she needed someone else to make all the pieces fit; now she needed four other people -- but they needed her too. None of them could crack a safe, or rappel down a building, or get into tight spaces the way she could, and besides herself, only Hardison had any skill at cracking security codes.
After they retrieved the stolen plans and brought them to Dubenich at an abandoned warehouse, he told them he’d deposited the money in their accounts. A few minutes later, he tried to blow up the warehouse with the Leverage crew inside. It turned out that Dubenich was the actual thief and he’d planned to double cross Nate’s team. Parker was furious; he’d not only tried to kill them, he’d stiffed them too! If there was anything she hated as much as injured children and attempts on her life, it was someone cheating her out of her hard-earned money. The team wasted no time getting its revenge on Dubenich. Parker enjoyed sneaking into his offices and planting bugs almost as much as watching him being arrested by the FBI. But the best part was the $163.5 million the team made by short-selling stock in Dubenich’s aeronautics company. Even split five ways, it was a helluva lot of money.
Now she could go back to her loft in Bushwick, back to working alone, back to normal heists. Or, if she wanted to, she could retire. Hell, she didn’t need any more money; she’d just made $32.7 million. After a few weeks, though, she got bored. She missed Sophie and Nate, even Eliot, and especially Hardison. There had to be more to life than taking naps on the futon with Bunny, watching DVDs of It Takes A Thief, and eating Rocket Os cereal six times a day. When she got a call to go to Monaco to steal a painting, she was relieved. At least it was something she did well, and it would break the boredom.
She’d barely got the Van Gogh out of its spot in the museum when her cell phone rang. It was Hardison. Could she join him and the others one more time? The moment Parker handed the painting to her client, she was off to Los Angeles again. When she arrived at the appointed location, she learned that Nate had set up a cover operation called Leverage Consulting & Associates, complete with a fancy-pants office and a room full of wicked plasma TVs and computer technology.
Could she help them again? There was this soldier who’d been injured in Iraq. The hospital wouldn’t, or couldn’t, pay for his physical rehabilitation. Nate was going to find the money that should have gone to the hospital and get the soldier the help he needed.
Well, she couldn’t exactly turn her back on this job. She would be helping someone who had served his country. She didn’t like when people didn’t get what they’d worked for. She was in again. When they had retrieved the money (a fancy little heist that led to the arrest of a crooked congressman) and given it to the hospital, they could have all said goodbye.
“Anyone who wants to walk away can go right now,” said Nate.
Nobody spoke. Parker looked at Sophie, Eliot and Hardison. Did all four of them have the same idea?
Eliot answered first. “One more...”
“Maybe two,” said Hardison.
Nate and Sophie grinned. Parker couldn’t help grinning too. She had the feeling two more jobs would turn to three, then four, and eventually none of them would be interested in going off on his or her own again.
Working alone was easier in a lot of ways. But this -- this was much more fun. Stealing paintings and gems was just a job; doing this was so much more. She didn’t need any more money; hers was locked away in a Swiss bank account.
This was different. It was special. Nate, Sophie, Eliot and Hardison needed her. Their clients needed her. And, Parker realized, she needed them. It was weird, spending so much time with people who needed her. Weird, but very, very good.
# # # #
Author: annearchy
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG
Length: 5,055 words
Warnings: A couple of swear words and some implied violence. Spoilers through episode 307.
Prompt: 86) You are about to begin the hero's journey. Travel well on the quest. A life of More is your birthright. Know the vast resources that reside in you and are provided for you in the world. You have raised the battle cry of There Must Be More Than This. -- Judith Wright (1915-2000), Australian poet, environmentalist, critic, and advocate of aboriginal land rights.
Summary: Before there was a Leverage Consulting & Associates, there was a girl who called herself Parker. This might be the story of how she became The Thief.
Author's Notes: “Even a thief takes ten years to learn his trade” - Japanese proverb
Includes a recognizable quote from the movie/TV series KUNG FU and several lines of dialogue from Leverage Season 1. This is my version of how Parker got to be Parker. While most of the story takes place prior to The Nigerian Job (ep 101), the catalyst for much of my take on Parker was The Inside Job (ep 303). Certain things may be recognizable as Leverage canon, while others come strictly from my imagination. Thanks to avidbeader for beta-reading and to Beth Riesgraf and the writers of Leverage for creating such a wonderful, quirky character.
Years To Learn Her Trade
The hardest thing to get used to was being with other people.
Parker had been with other people before, of course, in that sucky orphanage and the two really sucky foster homes. As she entered her teens, she spent plenty of time with Archie, the man she considered her father, the man who taught her most of what she knew.
She just wasn’t used to spending so much time with people who cared about her, who seemed to need her.
Well, maybe they just needed her talents. She was, after all, a damned good thief. Maybe the best, after Archie.
She’d never intended to get in this deep with Nate Ford and his crew. Leverage Consulting & Associates was what Nate called his new “business”. For him the work they were doing was very, very personal. Parker wasn’t sure what had broken up Nate’s marriage. Whether it was his need for alcohol, or the way the insurance company had shafted Nate and his wife by refusing to pay for the treatment that would have saved their son’s life. She’d cringed when she heard the story. Parker couldn’t stand to see children suffer.
It hit too close to home.
When she was really little there had been her and Frank and Mommy and Daddy. Then, when she was about four, Frank was riding his bike near the town gravel pit and went off the edge; he fell to the bottom of the pit and died. Parker was sad, and so was Mommy. Daddy mostly seemed angry all the time. Sometimes, when he drank too much, he hit Parker. She cried but Mommy didn’t help her. The only thing that helped was holding onto her big stuffed bunny. When she was six, the teacher at the tiny school called the county child welfare office. Someone came and took Parker away and put her in a foster home.
Parker stayed in that little house in Illinois for more than a year. Then Mommy and Daddy showed up and took her away with them. They were moving to Kansas City because Daddy was starting a new job there. When they had driven a long way, almost to Kansas City, someone ran a stop sign on the highway and hit their car. Mommy and Daddy were killed. Parker went to a hospital for awhile, then she was sent to a big, ugly building with a lot of other kids who had no parents either -- an orphanage.
At least she still had Bunny. The other kids at the orphanage would beg her to let them hold him, but she’d never let anyone else get near him. She couldn’t remember how long she’d been there but when they discovered her stealing from the other children, the orphanage staff sent her to live with foster parents named Mr. and Mrs. Brachman.
Mr. Brachman was even worse than the people who ran the orphanage. He and his wife were sort of stupid, though, leaving money and personal stuff lying around the house; didn’t they know she had trouble keeping her hands off anything? Parker couldn’t help herself. If there was money on a table (or in the sofa cushions, or in the pocket of Mr. Brachman’s pants hung on the end of his bed) Parker didn’t even think about it; her hand went to where the money was. Mr. Brachman finally got really, really mad about the stealing.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” he yelled at her one day. “C’mon already. Be a good girl or, I don’t know, a better thief.”
He took Bunny away and practically dared her to steal him back.
She showed Mr. Brachman. She was so angry she lit a match in the basement, near a pipe that led to the water heater. Then she walked out of the house, as fast as she could, with Bunny.
It was too bad his wife died in the explosion too.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
After that, Parker became a street rat. She’d left the foster home with just Bunny and the clothes on her back. She didn’t need much food, never had.
“For a kid with such a high metabolism, you sure don’t eat much,” Mrs. Brachman had said.
“Just as well,” her husband had grunted back, in between swallows of beer. “We’ll clear more on the foster care allowance.”
Parker really hated that man.
When she started living on the street, Parker never went hungry. There was always plenty of leftover food in Kansas City, especially around the restaurants. She liked to hang out in places where there were lots of kids; no one would notice one extra, skinny girl. She had a knack for finding spare change in the coin returns at the game arcades. And sometimes she just slipped her hand in someone’s jacket and found money without the person knowing it.
During the months after the explosion, she drifted around the city, somehow staying ahead of the Child Welfare people she knew were searching for her. Mrs. Rattigan, for one. The old hag suited her name - short and plump, with a long, pointy nose jutting from a fat, round face, her hair slicked back into an ugly bun. Parked hated her too, for sending her to live with the Brachmans. At night, when Parker huddled in a loft in a warehouse or in empty boxes behind a supermarket, she thought of Mrs. Rattigan’s rat face, how her beady little eyes must be scrunched up as she talked with the police about the skinny little blonde girl who was always causing trouble.
When she saw her own face on a poster for a missing child, Parker left Kansas City. Even if she wanted to go there, the orphanage wouldn’t take her back. No foster home would take her, she was sure, especially not one with nice parents-not that any nice parents would want a child thief who had blown up her previous foster parents.
It was 1989. Parker was ten years old.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
She had always been good at getting into tight spaces and out of tight spots. She was tall for her age, and slender. She knew how to hide in the middle of huge racks and carousels full of clothes. Later in the day, as Wal-Mart or Target or Dillard’s was closing, she could sneak into the warehouse and hide overnight. She learned early how to pick locks; as she moved around to different states (usually by hiding inside trucks), always avoiding the authorities, her skills at lock-picking grew along with her collection of thieving tools. She never carried more than one (stolen) duffel bag with her, and besides Bunny and the prized tools, that duffel never held more than two changes of clothes. After all, how many black leggings, hooded sweatshirts, gloves and knit caps did a girl need?
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Parker was in Brooklyn, New York, when she met Archie. She was thirteen then, loitering down the street from a pawn shop, when she spotted him. Tall, handsome, classy-looking, with gray hair and an expensive-looking top coat.
He looked like a good mark. Parker decided to pick his pocket.
She started following him, staying back about thirty paces, always keeping him in sight as he turned corners. After five or six blocks, she spotted him standing in front of a jewelry store, admiring a diamond necklace in the window. As she brushed past his back and tried to reach into his pocket, the man grabbed her wrist without looking back at her.
“OW!!”
His hand was tight on her wrist, and Parker was surprised at being caught. The man wouldn’t let go of her wrist. Parker squirmed, trying to wiggle away, and glared up at him. “Guess you’re gonna call the cops now.”
The man looked down at her. His face seemed blank, but Parker had never been good at figuring what was in people’s heads, least of all now.
“No, I don’t think I will,” he said finally. “You look like you could use a good meal. May I buy you lunch?”
She stared at him for a moment; no one had ever taken her out to lunch, or to any other meal. “Um, yeah, sure.”
He released his grip on Parker, and she walked next to him for three blocks, resisting the urge to slide her hand into his pocket, until they reached a small restaurant with a red awning. Calavacchia’s, the sign said. The man opened the door and stood back. It took Parker a few seconds to realize that he wanted her to go in ahead of him.
A dark-haired younger man greeted them. “Your usual table, Mr. Leach?”
“Yes, Alfred, thank you.”
Alfred showed them to a table in a quiet corner and gave them menus.
“Get whatever you’d like,” Mr. Leach told her. As Parker opened her menu, she felt like it was Christmas - or what she though a kid should feel like on Christmas; she couldn’t remember ever having one.
When they’d ordered and were waiting for their meals to arrive, Parker felt Mr. Leach’s eyes on her. She looked down, hands gripping the edge of her seat, trying not to squirm. She knew adults didn’t like squirming kids.
“So, my name is Archie Leach,” he said. “And you are --”
“Parker. Just Parker.”
Archie raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen your face on a missing child poster.”
A bitter taste trickled down Parker’s throat. She’d been found out. He was just being nice to her before he shipped her back to Kansas City.
“I really am not going to contact the police,” he said, as if reading her mind.
She looked up, relieved. “You’re not?”
“No, I’m not.” Archie Leach leaned over the table, as if to tell her a secret. “They don’t like me much either, truth be told. So it’s better for both of us if they don’t know that I know you’re here.”
Better for both of us... “Are you in trouble too?”
Archie Leach lowered his voice. “You could say that.” A moment later Alfred arrived with Parker’s lasagna, Archie’s pesto linguine and two large iced teas. “Let’s talk about that later. Right now we’ll eat.”
After lunch, Archie and Parker walked to a sort of run-down part of Brooklyn, the sort of place the Child Welfare workers might call “seedy”. The buildings were much bigger and dirtier than those near the restaurant and some of them had broken windows. They reminded Parker of the warehouses where she crashed in Kansas City.
Suddenly Archie stopped, pulled out a key and opened a door. “This is mine,” he said, ushering her inside.
Parker had been to a museum once before, on a field trip with the orphanage school. Archie’s warehouse reminded her of that museum. It was full of vases and paintings, lots of jewelry, some small, glittery statues - and about a gazillion jewels.
“Fuck.” Then, “Sorry.”
For the first time since she’d met him earlier that day, Archie Leach smiled. “Not to worry, Parker. I’ve been known to swear a time or two myself. And if I do say so, this is a very impressive stash.”
He waited a second. A thought began to form in her mind, but before she could get the words out, he added, “I’m a thief too. As you can see, I’ve amassed quite a large collection here. None of these actually belongs to me. Some I stole myself. Others are in transit, you might say, until I find the right time to fence them.”
So Archie was a big-time thief, and a fence. Now Parker was really curious. “So why are you telling me all this?”
Again she had trouble reading the look on his face. “I’ve been trying to find a protégé, an apprentice if you will. Someone to learn the craft from me. Someone to assist my business endeavors for the next several years.”
Parker stared at him, not knowing what to say.
“You’re the sort of person I’ve been looking for,” Archie went on. “Very young, slender, not a future beauty queen. The sort that doesn’t attract attention. Are you at all athletic?”
“Athletic enough.” Parker did a cartwheel, then a back walkover. When she was eight or nine years old, a gymnastics teacher had come to the orphanage once a week to teach some of the kids who’d shown an interest. Those gymnastics lessons were almost the only thing that made her happy back then, and now she was really glad she had taken them and continued to practice those skills.
Archie looked impressed. “Excellent. And I assume you’ve no fear of heights. What about enclosed spaces? Do you get in and out easily?”
“Piece of cake.” Actually, she was afraid of tiny spaces with close walls -- but she didn’t want him to know. He was offering her an opportunity to do exciting things. She’d have to learn, somehow, to get past that particular fear. She was starting to feel more at ease with him now. He was a thief, like her, only much older and - she assumed based on the contents of the warehouse - much, much better. She gave him a short history of what she’d been up to since she walked away from the exploding foster home. When Parker finished telling her story, Archie grinned.
“You have the makings of a brilliant thief,” he said, surprising Parker by taking both of her hands in his.
She pulled her hands away quickly, not sure what she was supposed to do next.
“I’m sorry,” he said, just as quickly. “This must be very confusing for you. Parker, I want to teach you what I know. You’ll be my student and this-“ he waved a hand at the contents of the warehouse - “will be your classroom as well as your living quarters.”
“You want me to live here? Don’t you have room at your place?” She could imagine where Archie lived: A big house, with lots of grass and a fence and a couple of dogs. “I don’t eat much, and I don’t need much room to sleep in.”
“First of all, you should not be running off willy-nilly to live with a man old enough - almost old enough to be your grandfather,” he insisted. “And second of all, I have a family. A wife, plus two sons in college and a daughter in high school. They think I’m an accountant for an international corporation. Surely you can see that it’s impossible for you to come home with me.”
Parker pouted. “I guess so.”
“Very good. There’s a loft upstairs” - Archie pointed toward one corner of the warehouse, near the roof - “with a bedroom, a bathroom and a small kitchen. I’ll make sure you have whatever you need. Food, clothes, a radio, a TV, books - just ask. I’m not always in town - sometimes my ‘business’ takes me overseas. But when I am in New York, I’ll visit every day. And once a week I’ll come by just to tutor you in the finer aspects of thievery. This won’t be a permanent situation, of course, but you’ll live here for the foreseeable future.”
After that moment, Parker never lived on the street again. The next day Archie delivered a color TV, an AM-FM radio and several bags of food. As Parker didn’t know how to cook, he brought lots of frozen foods that she could pop into the oven or the microwave, as well as several boxes of cereal. Parker liked the Rocket Os cereal better than anything else. She spent some time each day exploring the warehouse, admiring and sometimes touching the many beautiful objects and trying to imagine where and how they’d been stolen. At the back of the warehouse, though, was a room that was locked tight. Naturally Parker wanted to get into this room most of all.
“Patience, young grasshopper,” he said whenever she would ask to get in.
She had to wait quite a while. Finally, three months after she arrived, Archie allowed her into the forbidden place. “This room is very special,” he said, unlocking the door and leading her inside. The room was a long, high rectangle with black walls. At the other end was a high table that held a large rock. No, a huge diamond... As Parker moved slowly toward the stone, red lights criss-crossed the space like slender threads. She quickly backed up.
“This is the type of burglar alarm you’ll encounter in museums and the finest jewelry collections,” Archie explained. “Your job is to cross the room, retrieve the diamond and bring it to me without tripping the alarm. Use everything you know and you’ll get there.”
Biting her lip, she estimated her chances. “Yes, sir.”
The first few times she tried, Parker failed miserably. When it occurred to her to use her gymnastics skills, she made it farther across the room.
“Well done, kiddo,” Archie said encouragingly. “That’s enough for today. Keep practicing that back walkover and you’ll nail this soon.”
And then he was gone. No big goodbyes, no hugs, none of that mushy stuff. Parker hadn’t had a big, hard hug since before her mother died, and never at the orphanage or the foster homes, so she hadn’t expected it from Archie Leach either. Not really.
Two weeks later, after hours of practice in the loft, she crossed the room, retrieved the diamond (a heavy and convincing fake, she eventually learned) and brought it to Archie without setting off the alarm. As a reward, he gave her a thousand dollars in crisp $100 bills. “There’ll be more when you’ve completed an actual job. Much more.”
Parker grinned. She liked money. She would rather have money than the things it could buy. After Archie left, she pulled out a trunk from under the bed and put the money inside, right next to Bunny. She was safe now. Bunny was safe too. And she was sure there would be a lot more money. She’d never had friends. She hadn’t been to school in more than three years. But she’d never liked school anyway, and she really didn’t know how to make friends. People were confusing and messy. Money wasn’t.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
She stayed in Archie’s loft, under his paternal eye, for almost eight years. In the beginning, in the early 1990s, airline security wasn’t tight. They sometimes flew first-class to London or Brasilia or wherever the next heist was going down. Archie had many aliases, and Parker always traveled as his daughter. No one blinked an eye back then.
During her time with Archie, Parker traveled around the world four and three-quarter times. She had a big world atlas in her loft, and by the late 1990s she also had a computer and an Internet connection. She’d never been to high school but she probably knew more world geography than any of the kids she’d known in the orphanage. He bought a computer program to help her learn Spanish, which came in handy during their travels. She never spent enough time abroad to learn much about the local cultures, but at least she could ask for direction to el baño in Mexico, Argentina or Puerto Rico.
By the time she was twenty, she was wanted in six countries. She was lucky she got out of Yemen alive.
On her twenty-first birthday, Archie took her back to Calavacchia’s for dinner. She’d gone there many times over the years, usually without him, just because she loved the food. The fact that Archie chose this particular occasion to take her to dinner at this restaurant didn’t set off any alarms for Parker. She still had trouble figuring out what was in his head, even after all those years with him.
When they’d finished their meals, Archie took a long sip from his glass of Grappa. “So, kiddo, this is the end of the line for your living arrangement.”
He looked solemn, like a priest she had seen at the orphanage when she was little and one of the ancient nuns had died.
“What do you mean?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Parker - think back to when we met. I never intended this to be a permanent situation. As I’m neither your parent nor your legal guardian, I’ve never had any official responsibility for you. But as your de facto guardian, I’ve taken care of you for almost eight years. However, now you’re a legal adult. You can and should take care of yourself without any help from me. Not to mention you’ve become a damn fine thief. Let’s face it, kiddo, you don’t need me any more. I’ve taught you everything I know. For a rich person, you live a very Spartan lifestyle, and you have more money socked away than most people can dream of.” He pursed his lips, seeming to forget for a moment that she was even there. “You can make it on your own, very well, I’m sure. So if you don’t mind, I’d like you to clear out of the loft by Sunday.”
“By Sunday... I...” She didn’t know what to say. Archie wanted her to leave. “Sunday’s only three days from now.”
“Shouldn’t take you long to pack up your things,” he said. “I know you like to travel light. I can help you move that day, if you’d like.” Opening his briefcase, he pulled out a newspaper page and handed it to Parker; the page had several items circled. “I thought you might like to move to a bigger loft. I’ve marked several in East Williamsburg and Bushwick that might work for you.”
Parker stared at the newspaper. She had trouble putting a name on how she felt. Abandoned, maybe. She respected Archie; she was grateful for what he had taught her, the traveling, the nice things, especially the money. But now she was glad he’d never taken her to his home. In the end he probably would have tossed her out of there too, and it would have felt like being thrown out by her father.
“No, sir, that won’t be necessary,” she said finally in a hoarse voice. She was, as he’d said, an adult now. “I’ll handle it myself. But thanks for offering.”
“I want you to know,” Archie said slowly, “that I really do care about you, kiddo. In many ways you’re like a daughter to me. But this is the right time, for you as well as for me, to let you test your wings on your own. You’re already well-known and highly regarded among those who might want to use your services. You’ll do fine without me. Don’t worry, kiddo; you’ll see me again some time. Just not in the near future.”
With that Archie stood up and uffled Parker’s hair; he walked out the restaurant and, as far as she knew, out of her life.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Parked moved into a loft in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the following Sunday. She used one of her fake IDs to rent the loft and a small van to transport her few belongings, including her clothes, work tools and a futon. It was the way she had to live in the regular world, the world that didn’t hire her to boost something, break and enter, or do a heist. To her clients she was simply Parker, the young blonde who could pick any lock, break into any building, steal pretty much anything that could be stolen.
The problem with using aliases and fake IDs, of course, was that she had so many of them; she needed them for business-related activities like buying airfare and renting cars and hotel rooms. Because she had to be Parker for her clients, she couldn’t be that person for anyone else. So when she wasn’t off doing a job, she was a homebody, a loner, which was easier than trying to juggle aliases. She still had dinner alone at Calavacchia’s a couple times each month. There was no boyfriend, never had been. It didn’t really matter to Parker anyway; she never said the right things to people, and he would only leave her in the end.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
She’d been living and working on her own for more than seven years when she got a call from a Victor Dubenich, the CEO of a major manufacturer of aeronautical equipment. One of his competitors had stolen some plans for a new airplane from Dubenich’s company. It was industrial sabotage, he said, not the sort of thing he could easily take to the police. He’d also hired a grifter named Sophie Devereaux, a hacker named Alec Hardison, a retrieval specialist (Parker thought he was a hitter) named Eliot Spencer -- and a retired insurance investigator named Nathan Ford. Parker remembered Ford; he’d tried to track her down after she stole some paintings from a gallery in Russia.
Dubenich wanted Ford’s crew to steal the plans back, which would harm not only his competitor but also the company that insured the plans -- the same insurance company that had denied Ford’s young son medical treatment that would have saved his life. When they returned the plans to Dubenich, each member of the team would get $300,000. Parker wanted the money, but she also wanted to get back at the insurance company. She hated when children suffered. So she did something she hadn’t done since Archie walked away -- she worked with other people, instead of alone.
After being alone for so long, it was really weird to spend so much time with the four of them. Nate brooded about things and drank too much. Eliot brooded too and shot snarky remarks at Hardison, who seemed the happiest of the five of them, and at Sophie, who seemed to worry a lot about Nate. Getting Dubenich’s plans back was slightly trickier than she’d expected; working with four other people meant she had to rely on them to get their parts right, on top of doing her own. It had been a long time since she needed someone else to make all the pieces fit; now she needed four other people -- but they needed her too. None of them could crack a safe, or rappel down a building, or get into tight spaces the way she could, and besides herself, only Hardison had any skill at cracking security codes.
After they retrieved the stolen plans and brought them to Dubenich at an abandoned warehouse, he told them he’d deposited the money in their accounts. A few minutes later, he tried to blow up the warehouse with the Leverage crew inside. It turned out that Dubenich was the actual thief and he’d planned to double cross Nate’s team. Parker was furious; he’d not only tried to kill them, he’d stiffed them too! If there was anything she hated as much as injured children and attempts on her life, it was someone cheating her out of her hard-earned money. The team wasted no time getting its revenge on Dubenich. Parker enjoyed sneaking into his offices and planting bugs almost as much as watching him being arrested by the FBI. But the best part was the $163.5 million the team made by short-selling stock in Dubenich’s aeronautics company. Even split five ways, it was a helluva lot of money.
Now she could go back to her loft in Bushwick, back to working alone, back to normal heists. Or, if she wanted to, she could retire. Hell, she didn’t need any more money; she’d just made $32.7 million. After a few weeks, though, she got bored. She missed Sophie and Nate, even Eliot, and especially Hardison. There had to be more to life than taking naps on the futon with Bunny, watching DVDs of It Takes A Thief, and eating Rocket Os cereal six times a day. When she got a call to go to Monaco to steal a painting, she was relieved. At least it was something she did well, and it would break the boredom.
She’d barely got the Van Gogh out of its spot in the museum when her cell phone rang. It was Hardison. Could she join him and the others one more time? The moment Parker handed the painting to her client, she was off to Los Angeles again. When she arrived at the appointed location, she learned that Nate had set up a cover operation called Leverage Consulting & Associates, complete with a fancy-pants office and a room full of wicked plasma TVs and computer technology.
Could she help them again? There was this soldier who’d been injured in Iraq. The hospital wouldn’t, or couldn’t, pay for his physical rehabilitation. Nate was going to find the money that should have gone to the hospital and get the soldier the help he needed.
Well, she couldn’t exactly turn her back on this job. She would be helping someone who had served his country. She didn’t like when people didn’t get what they’d worked for. She was in again. When they had retrieved the money (a fancy little heist that led to the arrest of a crooked congressman) and given it to the hospital, they could have all said goodbye.
“Anyone who wants to walk away can go right now,” said Nate.
Nobody spoke. Parker looked at Sophie, Eliot and Hardison. Did all four of them have the same idea?
Eliot answered first. “One more...”
“Maybe two,” said Hardison.
Nate and Sophie grinned. Parker couldn’t help grinning too. She had the feeling two more jobs would turn to three, then four, and eventually none of them would be interested in going off on his or her own again.
Working alone was easier in a lot of ways. But this -- this was much more fun. Stealing paintings and gems was just a job; doing this was so much more. She didn’t need any more money; hers was locked away in a Swiss bank account.
This was different. It was special. Nate, Sophie, Eliot and Hardison needed her. Their clients needed her. And, Parker realized, she needed them. It was weird, spending so much time with people who needed her. Weird, but very, very good.
# # # #