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aeroport_artWent to see Cut Copy this weekend. It was the first time I'd actually been all the way up to the stage at a relatively large venue. All I have to say on the matter is, it was kind of mind-blowing and I sort of almost cried for the first time at any concert, and then I didn't get home until 6am.
And then I ditched a housewarming brunch today to write this! Because I was NOT about to go out again, haha.
Thanks![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alethialia, for the helpufl concrit on the first aborted attempt at this chapter >_<
The West Coast Two-Step: Part One
MASTER POST
The West Coast Two-Step: Part Two
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
Every Saturday, since Nate met Roth three weeks ago, they spend the day together. Gunny, too, though (luckily) Roth has yet to notice their third party.
“Is Gunny leaving with you?” Brad asks through a mouthful of foam.
“Nah,” Nate says, fastening his suspenders and snapping the elastics over his shoulders. “I’m not actually seeing Roth until dinnertime, today. But I’m going out to run some errands.”
“Oh,” Brad garbles from the bathroom. Nate hears him spit into the sink before saying, more clearly, “Good. I need to give him some intel before you guys go out.”
The faucet turns on and splashing sounds ensue. Nate calls out, “Actually, Christeson’s shadowing me tonight.”
“What?”
Nate hears the tap squeak shut. Brad trundles out; they’re out of clean towels so he’s wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, lifted up to reveal tanned skin and an abdomen cut from stone.
It takes significant effort for Nate not to meet Brad halfway and run his hands over the smooth ridges, but he’s trying to maintain some degree of professionalism while the sun is out and there are tasks to complete.
“What was that?” Brad asks again as he comes over, rearranging his shirt until he’s decent again.
“Gunny’s looking into something at the docks, so I told him I’d get Christeson to cover me at the Old Poodle Dog tonight.”
A little crease forms between Brad’s eyes. “That French place on Dupont?” he asks, rolling up his sleeves. “It costs something like, fifty greenbacks and a witch’s left tit to be seated upstairs. How’s Christeson getting in?”
“He’ll figure it out,” Nate assures. “Deputy Christeson is an extremely competent young man.” He watches as Brad shoves his sleeves up, but they’re all wrinkled and uneven at his inner elbows, so Nate reaches out to unfurl them, adding, “Besides, even if he’s just dining downstairs, I think I can manage a full meal on my own without choking on a bone or falling off the balcony.”
He turns up Brad’s cuffs in neat, crisp folds, digging his thumbs underneath the rolled fabric to straighten out the creases. Brad’s reservations linger in the air, distinctly palpable even without Nate having to look.
At the last tug of Brad’s sleeve, Nate relinquishes his arm and says teasingly, “It’s just dinner, Brad.”
“Not to him, I bet,” Brad argues, reaching out to slide a finger into the base of Nate’s suspender and tugging him in until they’re toe-to-toe. “I’ve heard Stafford talk about this place; the rooms on the sixth floor have beds in them, like a hotel. If I was taking you out to a seven-course meal that cost a small island just to tip the fucking waiter, I sure as hell would be intent on exploring more than just dinner.”
Nate hides a smile at Brad’s irascibility. “Look,” he says, disentangling himself from Brad. “Don’t fight me on this. We’ll be fine.”
“At least let me pay for a table he can sit at, okay?” Brad says as Nate walks over to the closet.
He plucks out a coat and shrugs it on, shaking his head. “Let it go, Brad. The U.S. Marshals have been getting by on fifteen dollars a week for as long as I’ve been with them. We know how to make things stretch.”
“Don’t even pretend Cocheta’s twenty-five grand wasn’t yours in the first place,” Brad complains. He pauses, as if parsing his next words: “You know, I could shadow you instead.”
Nate grabs his bowler hat—newly acquired, in the interests of better blending into the city—off one of the wall hooks and turns around. He doesn’t even bother to hide the lopsided grin on his face. “You asking me out on a date?”
“I’m asking to follow you out to yours, actually.”
Nate dons his bowler and leans in to clap Brad on the back. “Permission denied, Brad. There’s simply no reason for you to stop what you’re doing when Christeson is perfectly capable of performing the same task.”
Besides, Nate thinks to himself, even just the thought of Brad in the same room with him and Les makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The tension would be distracting at best, ruinous at worst.
“I want to see those court records tomorrow, okay?” Nate says. At Brad’s preoccupied nod, Nate shuts the door behind himself.
In the silence of the hallway, he pauses. He has the disquieting sensation that they weren’t actually done talking.
Nothing for it, though. Nate has things to do, none of which will resolve itself by thumb-twiddling in the hallway of the Embarcadero.
Nate sticks his hands into his pockets and saunters down the hall, mentally planning his route for the day.
-----
His first stop is the hardware store.
Nate enters the unassuming, three-story building from its south entrance on Vallejo Street and is instantly swayed by the packed shelves and clean, glass display cases that house such utilitarian goods as handsaws or jars of paint as if they were fine jewelry.
It’s immediate to him that he could easily lose an hour wandering around the store trying to find sheet metal, graphite powder, and a steel file, so he just asks the clerk instead. The excitable, round man begins spewing more information than Nate knows what to do with, coming around the long counter to pepper him with questions about what kind of metal he needs, what grade of powder, etcetera.
Above all, the clerk keeps asking Nate what purpose he has in mind for the products as he leads him to the correct sections of the store, bouncing on the balls of his feet as his fingers flip through sheets of copper and aluminum. Behind him, Nate scratches his eyebrow with the back of his thumbnail and fibs about some art project his sister is working on.
After all, he can’t very well tell the man he’ll be using the materials to forge a key.
The entire undertaking winds up costing Nate a good portion of the morning and he leaves the store more than a little impatient, purchases shoved unceremoniously into his side bag as he hurries to make his appointment with Evan Wright at the San Francisco Chronicle.
-----
Nate lets himself through the double doors of the Chronicle building, sparing not a second glance at his surroundings but to locate the nearest staircase. He’s twenty minutes late and feeling more than a little guilty for it.
Second…third… He rounds up to the fourth floor and swings around the banister, heading to the receiving area where Wright said he’d be waiting.
When Nate pushes through the wooden door, however—the heels of his oxfords clacking loudly against stone tile—Nate is unsurprised to find himself alone in a smallish, square room dominated by a wide mahogany table. The wooden chair behind it languishes unoccupied, as it’s the weekend.
Nate slows his gait, suddenly aware of the dampness of his forehead, his body still flush with the exertion of dodging horse buggies and cable cars for sixteen blocks. He takes off his bowler hat mid-stride and runs a hand through his hair, cooling off as he heads for the opposite door.
When he tries the brass handle, he’s dismayed to find it’s locked.
“Damn,” he mutters, jiggling the handle out of frustration. Maybe that’s what alerts Wright inside, because suddenly the door swings inward, stopped by the blunt sound of wood hitting the toe of Nate’s shoe.
“Oh!” Wright exclaims from the other side. Nate backs up, letting Wright open the door, which reveals him in a striped shirt, faded trousers, and an apologetic grimace as he says, “Sorry, Mr. Fick. I hope that didn’t hurt.”
“Not at all,” Nate smiles. They shake hands, Wright ushering him inside.
The main floor turns out to be huge; much larger than it looks from the outside. It’s probably helped by the plan of the office, which eschews hallways and dividers in favor of an open swathe of space, rows of messy desks one after another like factory lines. Sitting atop the majority of the desks, typing machines hold realm like large, steel crustaceans, their oiled appendages just waiting to lash out a scathing theater review or descriptions of some gory crime.
“Thanks for making it on such short notice,” Wright says as he leads them all the way to the far end of the floor.
“It’s no problem,” Nate automatically replies. It’s true, he’d only received the telegram from Wright the day before, but he’d been intrigued by the subtle urgency behind the request for a meeting. “Can I ask what this is about?”
They reach an office door tucked into the corner of the building, and Wright lets them inside, saying, “Here, why don’t you sit, first.”
Nate enters, whistling lowly. The office certainly belongs to someone of grand stature—leather furnishings lounge around a lacquered desk, which gleams with Oriental paintings of birds and cherry blossoms down the sides.
“You sure have a nice office,” Nate says, mostly in jest.
Wright looks embarrassed though, as he replies, “Oh, it’s not actually mine. It’s, um—the editor-in-chief, Gregory Challis’.”
“I kind of gathered,” Nate chuckles, setting his bag down on the carpeted floor and lowering himself into one of the squashy seats angled in towards the desk. Wright opts for the one next to him, settling in with the sound of creaking leather.
“Now will you divulge the meaning behind this appointment, Mr. Wright? You seemed…troubled, from what I could gather in a simple telegram.” Nate unbuttons his coat, letting it fall open around his sides as he leans into the backrest of his chair. He leaves his hat in his lap.
Wright hunches forward, hands clasped before him. “Well, you see.” He rocks back, then forward again, leather groaning as he does so. “Can I get you a drink first, actually?” He makes as if to stand up, head swiveling to look for a decanter somewhere, but Nate places a hand on Wright’s shoulder to steady him.
“Mr. Wright,” he says firmly. “I don’t need a drink. Just take your time.” Nate pulls his hand back. “Now. Why did you want to see me?”
Wright lets his breath out in a hiss of air. “It’s about Leslie Roth. I saw him at the Barbary Coast on Tuesday, speaking with some men who run an opium joint down there.”
Nate blinks at that. The Barbary Coast is hardly the type of place someone readily admits to frequenting. Just east of Chinatown, the area swarms with debauchery every night. Stumbling men, half seas over with drink, make their way over to partake in prostitutes, opium, or both. Most consider themselves lucky if they don’t wake up the next morning on a ship in the middle of the Pacific, having been shanghaied by crooked businessmen looking to pick up free sailors.
“I was there for work,” Wright says defensively, like he can see the thoughts crossing Nate’s mind. “I, uh—well, I do some writing for some fellows, over there…”
Nate holds up his hand. “I really don’t need to know, Mr. Wright. Just tell me what you saw.”
Wright looks more than happy to change the subject. He quickly describes the scene, and Nate nods along, mentally matching the descriptions of the dope dealers to photographs of the men he’s studied up on, people who Nate already knows Roth consorts with. He makes a note to himself to have Stafford and Christeson, or maybe Ray and Walt, check it out at a later time.
“Now, I know you and Mr. Roth are, um, close,” Wright says, bringing Nate’s attention back to him. “But after meeting you last weekend, I didn’t get the sense you’d be caught up in anything illegal. And then I remembered what you were doing that night, upstairs at Roth’s estate, like you were looking around for something.” Wright flashes a quick, nervous smile. “So I did a little research.”
Nate frowns, unsure of where Wright’s heading with his yarn. “Research, how?”
Wright looks around again, although they’re completely alone in the private office of a deserted building. He scoots forward to the edge of his cushion, leans towards Nate, and whispers:
“You’re a United States Marshal, Mr. Fick.”
Nate feels his muscles tense. He’s suddenly very warm. “I don’t know what you mean—“
“You don’t have to worry, mister—I mean, Marshal Fick.”
“Please don’t call me that,” Nate manages, forcing his fingers to unclench from where they’ve dug into the brim of his hat.
“Yes, of course. But you don’t have to worry, see. I can help.”
Eagerness radiates from Wright like a glowing candle. His quick, blue eyes are wide with hope, and he keeps smiling at Nate like he’s expecting a congratulation of some sort.
Mostly, Nate just wants to shake Wright and demand how he knows. If an oddball, freelance journalist could discover Nate’s true aims in less than a week, is it possible that Roth, with his vast network and vested interest in Nate and his past—Jesus, could he know too?
Nate must look stricken because Wright quickly interjects, “Oh shoot, I didn’t mean it was easy, figuring that out. I had to pull some strings, ask an old colleague of mine from D.C. to do me a favor. It wasn’t easy, Mr. Fick. I’m sure your cover’s still safe.”
“Just—continue. Please,” Nate says tightly. “What do you want from me, Mr. Wright?”
“I want to help. If Roth’s a bad guy, which I’m assuming he is if the U.S. Marshals are after him—“
Nate doesn’t bother to correct him. Roth is small-time, barely even worth the notice of the state police, much less the federal outfit of the Service, but Wright already knows too much as is. The last thing Nate’s going to do is mention his true quarry of Cocheta the Unknown.
“—If you’re after him, I want in,” Wright says. “I’ve been trying to break a story about all the opium dens that are still hanging around in San Francisco, but I just haven’t been able to find a central story, you know? This would be good for the both of us.”
“How would you propose to help me in any way, Mr. Wright?” Nate asks sharply. “As far as I can tell, all you’ve done is become a liability to me.”
Wright looks crestfallen for a moment, but then he lights up and holds up a finger. “Hold on,” he says, standing up from his seat. “I’ll be right back. Let me just—I want to get something from my desk.”
Bewildered, Nate watches him leave, hearing stuttered steps echo through the open door like Wright’s half-walking, half-jogging to retrieve whatever he’s going for.
Just a minute or two later, Wright lets himself back into the small room, a sheet of paper clutched in one hand.
“Here, you can have this,” he says, passing it over.
Nate smoothes it out on his leg, finding a long list of handwritten names—thirty or forty of them, each one preceded by a tiny bullet point.
“It’s the guest list for Roth’s party next weekend,” Wright explains. “I’m covering it for the society column, so I’ll be there on Saturday with a small team from the Chronicle. I’m sure you’ve been keeping tabs on his business partners, so maybe that list will connect some dots.”
Nate folds the paper into quarters and slides it into the inner pocket of his coat. “I could’ve found this on my own,” he says evenly, “just by asking Les. I’m sorry, Mr. Wright, but the best thing you can do for me is to stay out of my way.”
He has nothing more to say on the subject, so Nate makes his point by putting on his hat on and pushing himself up from his seat. Wright watches on helplessly, standing up as well. His hands twitch ineffectively as Nate buttons his coat back together and reaches down for the strap of his bag.
“Now,” Nate says, picking it up. “It’s been educational, Mr. Wright. But unless you can think of something concrete to help me with, I’d prefer if we both pretended this never happened.”
He sticks his palm out and Wright takes it listlessly, shaking goodbye. Nate steps out of the editor’s private office, trying not to get annoyed by the way Wright follows him all the way across the main floor.
Suddenly, Wright calls out, “Wait!”
Nate steels himself, then turns around. “What is it now, Mr. Wright?”
“You have others you work with, correct?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Of course not,” he says, wincing. “I just mean—look, I can get whoever you want into the party.”
Interesting. Nate sizes him up, seeing if Wright is telling the truth. “Six men,” he states. “Can you do it?”
Wright frowns, eyes going skyward as he visibly counts in his head how many guests he can swing. “I…yeah,” he eventually says. “Yeah, I can get six guys in.”
Well, that was unexpected. “Sounds good,” Nate says. “We probably shouldn’t meet again between now and the party, so send me the details whenever you have them.”
“Okay,” Wright says with a disbelieving grin.
Nate turns around once more, walking towards the way he came.
This meeting turned out more advantageous than he could’ve imagined.
Wright calls after him, “I hope one of your guys knows how to handle photography equipment!”
And then I ditched a housewarming brunch today to write this! Because I was NOT about to go out again, haha.
Thanks
alethialia, for the helpufl concrit on the first aborted attempt at this chapter >_<The West Coast Two-Step: Part One
MASTER POST
The West Coast Two-Step: Part Two
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
Every Saturday, since Nate met Roth three weeks ago, they spend the day together. Gunny, too, though (luckily) Roth has yet to notice their third party.
“Is Gunny leaving with you?” Brad asks through a mouthful of foam.
“Nah,” Nate says, fastening his suspenders and snapping the elastics over his shoulders. “I’m not actually seeing Roth until dinnertime, today. But I’m going out to run some errands.”
“Oh,” Brad garbles from the bathroom. Nate hears him spit into the sink before saying, more clearly, “Good. I need to give him some intel before you guys go out.”
The faucet turns on and splashing sounds ensue. Nate calls out, “Actually, Christeson’s shadowing me tonight.”
“What?”
Nate hears the tap squeak shut. Brad trundles out; they’re out of clean towels so he’s wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, lifted up to reveal tanned skin and an abdomen cut from stone.
It takes significant effort for Nate not to meet Brad halfway and run his hands over the smooth ridges, but he’s trying to maintain some degree of professionalism while the sun is out and there are tasks to complete.
“What was that?” Brad asks again as he comes over, rearranging his shirt until he’s decent again.
“Gunny’s looking into something at the docks, so I told him I’d get Christeson to cover me at the Old Poodle Dog tonight.”
A little crease forms between Brad’s eyes. “That French place on Dupont?” he asks, rolling up his sleeves. “It costs something like, fifty greenbacks and a witch’s left tit to be seated upstairs. How’s Christeson getting in?”
“He’ll figure it out,” Nate assures. “Deputy Christeson is an extremely competent young man.” He watches as Brad shoves his sleeves up, but they’re all wrinkled and uneven at his inner elbows, so Nate reaches out to unfurl them, adding, “Besides, even if he’s just dining downstairs, I think I can manage a full meal on my own without choking on a bone or falling off the balcony.”
He turns up Brad’s cuffs in neat, crisp folds, digging his thumbs underneath the rolled fabric to straighten out the creases. Brad’s reservations linger in the air, distinctly palpable even without Nate having to look.
At the last tug of Brad’s sleeve, Nate relinquishes his arm and says teasingly, “It’s just dinner, Brad.”
“Not to him, I bet,” Brad argues, reaching out to slide a finger into the base of Nate’s suspender and tugging him in until they’re toe-to-toe. “I’ve heard Stafford talk about this place; the rooms on the sixth floor have beds in them, like a hotel. If I was taking you out to a seven-course meal that cost a small island just to tip the fucking waiter, I sure as hell would be intent on exploring more than just dinner.”
Nate hides a smile at Brad’s irascibility. “Look,” he says, disentangling himself from Brad. “Don’t fight me on this. We’ll be fine.”
“At least let me pay for a table he can sit at, okay?” Brad says as Nate walks over to the closet.
He plucks out a coat and shrugs it on, shaking his head. “Let it go, Brad. The U.S. Marshals have been getting by on fifteen dollars a week for as long as I’ve been with them. We know how to make things stretch.”
“Don’t even pretend Cocheta’s twenty-five grand wasn’t yours in the first place,” Brad complains. He pauses, as if parsing his next words: “You know, I could shadow you instead.”
Nate grabs his bowler hat—newly acquired, in the interests of better blending into the city—off one of the wall hooks and turns around. He doesn’t even bother to hide the lopsided grin on his face. “You asking me out on a date?”
“I’m asking to follow you out to yours, actually.”
Nate dons his bowler and leans in to clap Brad on the back. “Permission denied, Brad. There’s simply no reason for you to stop what you’re doing when Christeson is perfectly capable of performing the same task.”
Besides, Nate thinks to himself, even just the thought of Brad in the same room with him and Les makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The tension would be distracting at best, ruinous at worst.
“I want to see those court records tomorrow, okay?” Nate says. At Brad’s preoccupied nod, Nate shuts the door behind himself.
In the silence of the hallway, he pauses. He has the disquieting sensation that they weren’t actually done talking.
Nothing for it, though. Nate has things to do, none of which will resolve itself by thumb-twiddling in the hallway of the Embarcadero.
Nate sticks his hands into his pockets and saunters down the hall, mentally planning his route for the day.
-----
His first stop is the hardware store.
Nate enters the unassuming, three-story building from its south entrance on Vallejo Street and is instantly swayed by the packed shelves and clean, glass display cases that house such utilitarian goods as handsaws or jars of paint as if they were fine jewelry.
It’s immediate to him that he could easily lose an hour wandering around the store trying to find sheet metal, graphite powder, and a steel file, so he just asks the clerk instead. The excitable, round man begins spewing more information than Nate knows what to do with, coming around the long counter to pepper him with questions about what kind of metal he needs, what grade of powder, etcetera.
Above all, the clerk keeps asking Nate what purpose he has in mind for the products as he leads him to the correct sections of the store, bouncing on the balls of his feet as his fingers flip through sheets of copper and aluminum. Behind him, Nate scratches his eyebrow with the back of his thumbnail and fibs about some art project his sister is working on.
After all, he can’t very well tell the man he’ll be using the materials to forge a key.
The entire undertaking winds up costing Nate a good portion of the morning and he leaves the store more than a little impatient, purchases shoved unceremoniously into his side bag as he hurries to make his appointment with Evan Wright at the San Francisco Chronicle.
-----
Nate lets himself through the double doors of the Chronicle building, sparing not a second glance at his surroundings but to locate the nearest staircase. He’s twenty minutes late and feeling more than a little guilty for it.
Second…third… He rounds up to the fourth floor and swings around the banister, heading to the receiving area where Wright said he’d be waiting.
When Nate pushes through the wooden door, however—the heels of his oxfords clacking loudly against stone tile—Nate is unsurprised to find himself alone in a smallish, square room dominated by a wide mahogany table. The wooden chair behind it languishes unoccupied, as it’s the weekend.
Nate slows his gait, suddenly aware of the dampness of his forehead, his body still flush with the exertion of dodging horse buggies and cable cars for sixteen blocks. He takes off his bowler hat mid-stride and runs a hand through his hair, cooling off as he heads for the opposite door.
When he tries the brass handle, he’s dismayed to find it’s locked.
“Damn,” he mutters, jiggling the handle out of frustration. Maybe that’s what alerts Wright inside, because suddenly the door swings inward, stopped by the blunt sound of wood hitting the toe of Nate’s shoe.
“Oh!” Wright exclaims from the other side. Nate backs up, letting Wright open the door, which reveals him in a striped shirt, faded trousers, and an apologetic grimace as he says, “Sorry, Mr. Fick. I hope that didn’t hurt.”
“Not at all,” Nate smiles. They shake hands, Wright ushering him inside.
The main floor turns out to be huge; much larger than it looks from the outside. It’s probably helped by the plan of the office, which eschews hallways and dividers in favor of an open swathe of space, rows of messy desks one after another like factory lines. Sitting atop the majority of the desks, typing machines hold realm like large, steel crustaceans, their oiled appendages just waiting to lash out a scathing theater review or descriptions of some gory crime.
“Thanks for making it on such short notice,” Wright says as he leads them all the way to the far end of the floor.
“It’s no problem,” Nate automatically replies. It’s true, he’d only received the telegram from Wright the day before, but he’d been intrigued by the subtle urgency behind the request for a meeting. “Can I ask what this is about?”
They reach an office door tucked into the corner of the building, and Wright lets them inside, saying, “Here, why don’t you sit, first.”
Nate enters, whistling lowly. The office certainly belongs to someone of grand stature—leather furnishings lounge around a lacquered desk, which gleams with Oriental paintings of birds and cherry blossoms down the sides.
“You sure have a nice office,” Nate says, mostly in jest.
Wright looks embarrassed though, as he replies, “Oh, it’s not actually mine. It’s, um—the editor-in-chief, Gregory Challis’.”
“I kind of gathered,” Nate chuckles, setting his bag down on the carpeted floor and lowering himself into one of the squashy seats angled in towards the desk. Wright opts for the one next to him, settling in with the sound of creaking leather.
“Now will you divulge the meaning behind this appointment, Mr. Wright? You seemed…troubled, from what I could gather in a simple telegram.” Nate unbuttons his coat, letting it fall open around his sides as he leans into the backrest of his chair. He leaves his hat in his lap.
Wright hunches forward, hands clasped before him. “Well, you see.” He rocks back, then forward again, leather groaning as he does so. “Can I get you a drink first, actually?” He makes as if to stand up, head swiveling to look for a decanter somewhere, but Nate places a hand on Wright’s shoulder to steady him.
“Mr. Wright,” he says firmly. “I don’t need a drink. Just take your time.” Nate pulls his hand back. “Now. Why did you want to see me?”
Wright lets his breath out in a hiss of air. “It’s about Leslie Roth. I saw him at the Barbary Coast on Tuesday, speaking with some men who run an opium joint down there.”
Nate blinks at that. The Barbary Coast is hardly the type of place someone readily admits to frequenting. Just east of Chinatown, the area swarms with debauchery every night. Stumbling men, half seas over with drink, make their way over to partake in prostitutes, opium, or both. Most consider themselves lucky if they don’t wake up the next morning on a ship in the middle of the Pacific, having been shanghaied by crooked businessmen looking to pick up free sailors.
“I was there for work,” Wright says defensively, like he can see the thoughts crossing Nate’s mind. “I, uh—well, I do some writing for some fellows, over there…”
Nate holds up his hand. “I really don’t need to know, Mr. Wright. Just tell me what you saw.”
Wright looks more than happy to change the subject. He quickly describes the scene, and Nate nods along, mentally matching the descriptions of the dope dealers to photographs of the men he’s studied up on, people who Nate already knows Roth consorts with. He makes a note to himself to have Stafford and Christeson, or maybe Ray and Walt, check it out at a later time.
“Now, I know you and Mr. Roth are, um, close,” Wright says, bringing Nate’s attention back to him. “But after meeting you last weekend, I didn’t get the sense you’d be caught up in anything illegal. And then I remembered what you were doing that night, upstairs at Roth’s estate, like you were looking around for something.” Wright flashes a quick, nervous smile. “So I did a little research.”
Nate frowns, unsure of where Wright’s heading with his yarn. “Research, how?”
Wright looks around again, although they’re completely alone in the private office of a deserted building. He scoots forward to the edge of his cushion, leans towards Nate, and whispers:
“You’re a United States Marshal, Mr. Fick.”
Nate feels his muscles tense. He’s suddenly very warm. “I don’t know what you mean—“
“You don’t have to worry, mister—I mean, Marshal Fick.”
“Please don’t call me that,” Nate manages, forcing his fingers to unclench from where they’ve dug into the brim of his hat.
“Yes, of course. But you don’t have to worry, see. I can help.”
Eagerness radiates from Wright like a glowing candle. His quick, blue eyes are wide with hope, and he keeps smiling at Nate like he’s expecting a congratulation of some sort.
Mostly, Nate just wants to shake Wright and demand how he knows. If an oddball, freelance journalist could discover Nate’s true aims in less than a week, is it possible that Roth, with his vast network and vested interest in Nate and his past—Jesus, could he know too?
Nate must look stricken because Wright quickly interjects, “Oh shoot, I didn’t mean it was easy, figuring that out. I had to pull some strings, ask an old colleague of mine from D.C. to do me a favor. It wasn’t easy, Mr. Fick. I’m sure your cover’s still safe.”
“Just—continue. Please,” Nate says tightly. “What do you want from me, Mr. Wright?”
“I want to help. If Roth’s a bad guy, which I’m assuming he is if the U.S. Marshals are after him—“
Nate doesn’t bother to correct him. Roth is small-time, barely even worth the notice of the state police, much less the federal outfit of the Service, but Wright already knows too much as is. The last thing Nate’s going to do is mention his true quarry of Cocheta the Unknown.
“—If you’re after him, I want in,” Wright says. “I’ve been trying to break a story about all the opium dens that are still hanging around in San Francisco, but I just haven’t been able to find a central story, you know? This would be good for the both of us.”
“How would you propose to help me in any way, Mr. Wright?” Nate asks sharply. “As far as I can tell, all you’ve done is become a liability to me.”
Wright looks crestfallen for a moment, but then he lights up and holds up a finger. “Hold on,” he says, standing up from his seat. “I’ll be right back. Let me just—I want to get something from my desk.”
Bewildered, Nate watches him leave, hearing stuttered steps echo through the open door like Wright’s half-walking, half-jogging to retrieve whatever he’s going for.
Just a minute or two later, Wright lets himself back into the small room, a sheet of paper clutched in one hand.
“Here, you can have this,” he says, passing it over.
Nate smoothes it out on his leg, finding a long list of handwritten names—thirty or forty of them, each one preceded by a tiny bullet point.
“It’s the guest list for Roth’s party next weekend,” Wright explains. “I’m covering it for the society column, so I’ll be there on Saturday with a small team from the Chronicle. I’m sure you’ve been keeping tabs on his business partners, so maybe that list will connect some dots.”
Nate folds the paper into quarters and slides it into the inner pocket of his coat. “I could’ve found this on my own,” he says evenly, “just by asking Les. I’m sorry, Mr. Wright, but the best thing you can do for me is to stay out of my way.”
He has nothing more to say on the subject, so Nate makes his point by putting on his hat on and pushing himself up from his seat. Wright watches on helplessly, standing up as well. His hands twitch ineffectively as Nate buttons his coat back together and reaches down for the strap of his bag.
“Now,” Nate says, picking it up. “It’s been educational, Mr. Wright. But unless you can think of something concrete to help me with, I’d prefer if we both pretended this never happened.”
He sticks his palm out and Wright takes it listlessly, shaking goodbye. Nate steps out of the editor’s private office, trying not to get annoyed by the way Wright follows him all the way across the main floor.
Suddenly, Wright calls out, “Wait!”
Nate steels himself, then turns around. “What is it now, Mr. Wright?”
“You have others you work with, correct?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Of course not,” he says, wincing. “I just mean—look, I can get whoever you want into the party.”
Interesting. Nate sizes him up, seeing if Wright is telling the truth. “Six men,” he states. “Can you do it?”
Wright frowns, eyes going skyward as he visibly counts in his head how many guests he can swing. “I…yeah,” he eventually says. “Yeah, I can get six guys in.”
Well, that was unexpected. “Sounds good,” Nate says. “We probably shouldn’t meet again between now and the party, so send me the details whenever you have them.”
“Okay,” Wright says with a disbelieving grin.
Nate turns around once more, walking towards the way he came.
This meeting turned out more advantageous than he could’ve imagined.
Wright calls after him, “I hope one of your guys knows how to handle photography equipment!”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2011-04-04 04:26 am (UTC)Brad trundles out; they’re out of clean towels so he’s wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, lifted up to reveal tanned skin and an abdomen cut from stone.
Still love this image SO much. Also love your use of the word 'trundles.' An odd one, that, and I kind of adore it. LOTS.
It takes significant effort for Nate not to meet Brad halfway and run his hands over the smooth ridges, but he’s trying to maintain some degree of professionalism while the sun is out and there are tasks to complete.
Oh, NATE. Really, we must discuss your priorities.
He turns up Brad’s cuffs in neat, crisp folds, digging his thumbs underneath the rolled fabric to straighten out the creases. Brad’s reservations linger in the air, distinctly palpable even without Nate having to look.
LOVE the cuffs! AND Brad's reservations lingering, unspoken. Gorgeous description.
“I’ve heard Stafford talk about this place; the rooms on the sixth floor have beds in them, like a hotel. If I was taking you out to a seven-course meal that cost a small island just to tip the fucking waiter, I sure as hell would be intent on exploring more than just dinner.”
Mmmm. I would be...interested to see just what Brad would explore, in such circumstances.
After all, he can’t very well tell the man he’ll be using the materials to forge a key.
Nate is such a BADASS!
“I just mean—look, I can get whoever you want into the party.”
Interesting. Nate sizes him up, seeing if Wright is telling the truth. “Six men,” he states. “Can you do it?”
Eee! Brad watching as Roth hits on Nate at this party??? I am so there.
“I hope one of your guys knows how to handle photography equipment!”
Q-tip?
YAYYYY! Fabulous, fabulous. Love the tweaks you made (and all the new stuff!). It reads almost foreboding because you just know things can't be going this well. Not in your world, anyway. ;)
SUCH love! You continue to rock hardcore.
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Date: 2011-04-05 01:18 am (UTC)AND Brad's reservations lingering, unspoken.
Aww, thanks!!! I love it when simple lines just work, and I'm happy this did that for you.
Nate is such a BADASS!
Moohaha. I have big plans for Nate and how he's going to swipe Roth's office key. Big, dirty plans. Did I mention moohaha?
Brad watching as Roth hits on Nate at this party???
Oh my gosh bb, I didn't even think of that really D: BUT WHAT A GRAND IDEA. I was just gonna have him sneak in later, BUT THINK OF ALL THE ANGST I WOULD BE MISSING OUT ON. I think if there's one takeaway from West Coast Two-Step is that I really, really love to torture Braddo.
It reads almost foreboding because you just know things can't be going this well.
YEY. FOREBODING IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT
*smishes your face*
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Date: 2011-04-05 01:26 am (UTC)::eyes you mistrustfully::
I didn't even think of that really D: BUT WHAT A GRAND IDEA.
Err...I'd take it back, but you write their longing so beautifully. But omg, don't hurt my Brad.
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Date: 2011-04-05 01:31 am (UTC)IT'S TOO LATE!!!! Brad's just so pretty when he angsts ;_; And he had the misfortune of falling for Nate, who (in my mind) is a total cock-tease and thinks everyone else is as well-adjusted as he is. He needs to be more careful around hard-shell-woobie-center!Brad :(
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Date: 2011-04-04 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 05:16 pm (UTC)Wright calls after him, “I hope one of your guys knows how to handle photography equipment!”
Oh please, please, let this be Brad. Following Nate and Roth around, taking pictures of Roth's "new toy" for society pages, and generally throwing Nate off balance. :)
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Date: 2011-04-05 01:24 am (UTC)Woohoo! I kinda went overboard with how awkward I made him act, but I couldn't help it. He's so shifty and clumsy and n00b on the show, I just had to translate that into this story. If not through having him trip and de-ball himself in a MOPP suit, then by being verbally awkward XD
Oh please, please, let this be Brad
Hee hee hee oh honey, you are mean! I thought I was already atrociously cruel to poor Braddo, making him jealous and rejected in every chapter DDD: It's okay though. I'm glad we are all in the same sadistic boat. Hmm, I have a feeling you'll like one of the upcoming scenes...;)
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Date: 2011-04-05 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-05 01:26 am (UTC)thanks for pushing through the inconvenience to say "yay"!! \o/
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Date: 2011-04-04 10:02 pm (UTC)He doesn’t even bother to hide the lopsided grin on his face. “You asking me out on a date?”
I love teasing Nate!! I love how little by little he accepted his fate! Which is,obviously,to be with Brad 4evah!
Plotwise this chapter is immaculate and just simply interesting to read, which can't be said very often about fanfics!
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Date: 2011-04-05 01:28 am (UTC)Plotwise this chapter is immaculate and just simply interesting to read
That is SUCH high praise :O:O:O You're making me blush!!!!
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Date: 2011-04-06 12:49 am (UTC)I'M SO TRANSPARENT
getting Roth and Brad in the same room with Nate is a recipe for disaster or spontaneous combustion
Eeeheehee I didn't even realize I was being such a tease with this scenario.
Or maybe a really hot threesome
OMG CAN YOU IMAGINE??? I had not. But holy cow, holy cow that would be hot. Especially since it'd be all angry and UST-y and like, yeah, basically Brad and Roth cage-fighting over cockslut!Nate. *___* I'll just let my mind wander a bit... *ahem*
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Date: 2011-04-06 09:12 am (UTC)I bet your Nate had. I bet he's going to be seriously distracted during the party, zoning out and fantasising about Roth and Brad slamming him against walls and fighting for the privilege of pleasing Nate. It's a fantasy, he can indulge.
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Date: 2011-04-06 01:15 am (UTC)Brad and Roth cage-fighting over cockslut!Nate.
OMG! What an image to dump on the unsuspected readers! <<3
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Date: 2011-04-06 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-06 02:13 am (UTC)Thank God! I was seriously scared for a minute, no lie!