Waiting by InSilva

Disclaimer: neither of them belongs to me. Yes, yes, I do keep reading the small print in case I'm wrong.

Summary: "Body and Soul" verse. Set somewhere close to the beginning of "Understanding". Where an early job does not go as planned.

A/N: It's not a one-shot. It's not "Justice" or "An Unholy Alliance". It's somewhere in the middle. Probably two chapters. Maybe three. And anyone who finds this lack of certainty amusing will be subject to a hard stare. And a sigh and a nod. Because I am completely useless on such matters.

This is set in the very early days of Danny and Rusty meeting. After their first couple of jobs. Before Rusty has completely left Saul and Annie's.

Oh, and don't know if anyone is but if you are wondering what has happened to "An Unholy Alliance", I am busy writing it. I just need to make sure that things tie up.

And since she has been wondrously sanity checking my fic for me for the past few weeks, I should like to dedicate this story to otherhawk. Who puts up with an awful lot. And I don't think I've embarrassed her in public with effusive thanks recently so I figure it's about time. And seriously, if anyone isn't reading her "Spirit and Dust", please, please do so. Can't imagine why you wouldn't be. But it is tremendous.

Anyway. Shutting up now.

Chapter One: Opportunity


He wasn't there. He wasn't there and he should be. He should have been waiting in the park on the bench by the balloon-seller, opposite the man and the ice-cream van. He wasn't.

Rusty checked his watch again unnecessarily. Time hadn't suddenly leapt back half-an-hour. He sighed and sat down on the bench, scanning the people strolling through the park. Couples and parents and children and dogs and no Danny. No one even close to being Danny.


It had been a plan which had evolved.

It had started with a barfly falling over and knocking Rusty's drink out of his hand and Danny neatly avoiding a whisky shower. And then the man had insisted on replacing it and with an unsteady finger had waggled at both of them and told them that they were nice guys and decent sorts. They wouldn't have thrown him out on his ear after thirty years of loyal service. Just because he enjoyed visiting the drinks cabinet uninvited. And they'd agreed and smiled and then the man had said something that had made Danny's ears prick up.

"Mr Lowmen wouldn't have let me go. His son. Alexander. He's the one who had it in for me."

"William Lowmen?" Danny asked casually.

"S'right." The man was wobbling now, ever so slightly.

With a quick flick of a look in Danny's direction to check his understanding – and he was right, Danny definitely wanted to find out more – Rusty guided the man to a table and Danny had brought whisky and the three of them continued the conversation.

Morris Stevens had been employed by the Lowmen family for a good part of his life. William M Lowmen, as Danny knew and Rusty was finding out, was a rich man: a retired banker, overweight and wheezing and lucky to make the most of his super annuity. But he had three children and his sons were two in number and anxious to inherit the money, the house and the little nuggets of wealth that William M Lowmen had squirreled away. And they were eagle-eyed guardians of their daddy's fortune.

The third child, his daughter, Jen, had a different agenda.

"Wants to find Mr Right," Morris hiccoughed. "Picks 'em up and drops 'em just as quickly. She's very fussy."

Danny and Rusty's eyes met.

She can-

-afford to be.

"Mr Lowmen lives on Fifth Avenue, doesn't he?" Danny asked.

"Yep. Nice big townhouse," Morris nodded. "With lots of little secrets."

"Secrets?" Rusty topped up his whisky glass.

"Yep." Morris attempted to tap the side of his nose and missed. He shrugged and took a long sip of whisky. "They've got fake paintings hanging in the hall. Do you know that? Real ones are in the vault. And Mr Lowmen owns a Jenny. Not his daughter…" There was a pause in proceedings while Morris laughed loudly. "And it isn't in the vault at all. It's in the bureau in his office. Hidden in plain view."

There were more tales of many other riches and there was description of the family – arrogant Alexander, son of a first marriage and older by a considerable degree; desperate not to be a spinster, would be patron of the arts, Jen; and Benjamin, youngest and full of Alexander hero-worship. And after a little more blinking and a little more incoherence, Morris slumped on to Rusty's shoulder and started softly snoring. Carefully, so as not to wake him, Rusty removed him and left him sitting propped up against the wall, sound asleep.

He looked at Danny who was studying the unconscious Morris.

"How did you know?" he asked and that brought Danny's gaze round to him.

"Not here."

And Rusty gave a nod. Because you could never be too careful.


Back at Danny's apartment, he shrugged his jacket off and flopped on to the couch and waited. Danny had been mostly silent on the way home and Rusty had given him space. But now was the time to share.

"I've heard of Lowmen," Danny began abruptly. "He's rich."

"How rich?"

"Rich enough to rob."

Rusty tried to read what was going on behind Danny's eyes because there was a plan, for sure, but there seemed to be something else…

"We go for the stamp."

OK. Now, Rusty was lost.

"What stamp?"

"The Jenny. The Inverted Jenny."

Rusty blinked and wondered if he should start speaking Cantonese to show Danny what it felt like.

Danny sighed.

"It's a famous and rare stamp. It's a picture of a plane that was printed upside down. It would sell for a lot on the private market."

How do you know this?

"Saw one once."

Rusty frowned because Danny wasn't quite meeting his eyes but he let it go. They'd known each other a little over a month and it was still early days. Especially when it came to the past.

Instead, he said, "Carter would probably be able to move it."

"Yeah," Danny nodded and there was a tinge of unspoken relief and thanks aimed at Rusty for not pursuing.

"So…?"

"We know where we want to get to and we don't need to go anywhere near the vault to get it."

Morris had talked at length about the impregnable walk-in vault built in to the cellar. It had intrigued but it sounded as if it needed more resource and more equipment and generally more of everything. This other target sounded like a quicker result.

"We need to know the layout." Rusty's brain started to engage itself. "Layout and-"

"-movement-"

"-and routine."

"We need to get into the inside."

"Jen."

"Yeah."

And with that sorted, Danny tossed the television remote control over to him.

"I'll pick up takeaway. You check out the film channels."

He had settled on "Mister Roberts" when Danny returned with Chinese and beers. They sat and watched Jimmy Cagney bully his men and Henry Fonda sacrifice his happiness for the morale of the crew and Jack Lemmon grow from Ensign Pulver into a man.

Rusty waved a fork at William Powell.

"He was in-"

"-'The Thin Man'."

"Yeah. Nick and Nora."

"And the dog."

"And the dog."

There was a silence.

"It's like 'The Pink Panther'," Danny said suddenly.

"Yes," Rusty agreed, nodding his head.

And neither of them stopped to marvel either at the fact that Danny did not need to explain he meant people thought both franchises were named after their lead characters when they weren't or the fact that Rusty understood completely or the fact that Danny realised he understood.


They found a picture of Jen in the society pages. Long hair swept up in a way that really didn't suit her and dressed starchily. Rusty had the sudden thought that this might have been a picture of a younger Beryl.

"She looks older than twenty-five," he commented.

Danny squinted at the picture.

"Think it's the hair. Or the clothes." He squinted again. "Or the face."

Rusty pursed his lips.

"We gonna lead her on?" He wanted it spelling out.

"A little," Danny acknowledged, looking guilty in a way that Rusty would later realise indicated a fight between sentiment and strategy. "We need to know what we need to know."

"Still…"

"Look at it this way. She has a most fabulous time even if it is only for a few days. Look at the picture. Doesn't she deserve that?"

Jen Lowmen stared up from the newspaper at Rusty and seemed to be on Danny's side of the argument. And it was short-term. And no one was going to be proposing marriage. No one was going to get hurt.


Danny engineered a meeting at the theatre, accidentally knocking the programme out of Jen's hand and retrieving it with a full charm offensive. Rusty who was watching from a short distance was partly amused and mostly exasperated to see it fail miserably.

Jen thanked Danny coldly and flounced off. Rusty saw a forlorn Danny standing looking after her and in spite of the setback, could not help the smile that floodlit his face. He was willing to bet that that had happened to Danny precisely never.

"Do I know you?"

He came to himself and found Jen stood in front of him, staring at him, blinking furiously and faintly blushing.

Chat up line. Opener. He dimmed the dazzle down to a conscious level of brightness and shook his head.

"I don't think so. But it seems we're talking now. That's almost an introduction, don't you think?"


He had met up with Danny in a bar outside and far away from the theatre and Jen.

"How did you get on?" Danny asked.

"We're going to inspect the Guggenheim together tomorrow. And don't say it," he added sharply.

"Say what?" Danny sounded innocent but that didn't stop Rusty's eyes narrowing as Danny added. "Was she good company?"

"She was…demanding. Wanted attention and lots of it. And every now and then she'd go all…" he paused searching for the word before deciding. "Girly."

"Uh-huh." Danny had started to grin. "Bit breathy? Bit Marilyn?"

Rusty gave him a hard stare.

Don't.

What?

"You know what."

There was the briefest of silences before Danny spoke again.

"Oh, you mean Jen Lowmen prefers blonds?"

Rusty winced.

"Don't worry," Danny soothed. "I won't say it."


The date at the Guggenheim was over and any scruples Rusty might have had about leading Jen up the garden path had easily disappeared. He had been chivalrous and attentive and she had lapped it all up whilst at the same time finding vociferous fault with the staff, the exhibits, the other visitors…even the architecture. Rusty doubted Frank Lloyd Wright particularly cared.

Now, he was sitting cross-legged on the couch at Danny's apartment, eating pizza and telling Danny what he'd discovered.

"It's a small household and they're one down on staff with Morris's dismissal. The sons and their father lunch at their club every Tuesday and Thursday. Thursday is the cook's day off. This Thursday is the day the housemaid's sweetheart is due back on leave. This Thursday, the only person around will be Jen."

"And she won't be around for long."

"No."

"So if you take her out…"

"You should have a free run of the house."

Danny nodded.

"Won't need long."

"If you had the alarm codes you could be quicker."

Danny looked at him quizzically.

"Jen has them scribbled in the back of her diary."

Diary…?

Rusty shrugged. "She was looking up a day when I can go and meet the family. I spotted them. It was an easy lift."

He brushed the pizza crumbs off his fingers and picked up pen and paper, jotting down the figures.

"I found the vault code too," he said casually. "If we wanted it."

Danny hesitated.

"Whatever they have stored in there's unlikely to be portable in the way that stamp is. And it's adding time we don't need to add." He sounded regretful. "Maybe I could take a look…you never know."

Rusty continued writing and Danny studied him.

"What did she say?" he asked.

Rusty concentrated on the numbers. "About what?"

Danny smiled. Rusty knew exactly what he was talking about.

"About you. You know you checked it out."

Rusty sighed and threw an exasperated glance at Danny.

Damn you.

"She thinks I'm cute," he said through gritted teeth.

Danny's grin was wide.

"And…?"

Rusty screwed his face up.

"And when I smile, I light up her world," he quoted. He scowled at Danny. "Happy?"

Danny's eyes were dancing with amusement at Rusty's discomfort.

"You know you could just have lied to me and said you didn't have time to read it."

Rusty's expression changed. He frowned and Danny saw that the option had never even occurred to him. The laughter died away at once and he leaned forward.

"I'm glad you didn't," he said softly.

He watched as Rusty blinked a couple of times and nodded. They were learning to accept that some things were never going to happen.


A/N: I apologise for the pun. These things just happen.