The skyscrapers made him uneasy. Compared to the open, Californian landscape, New York City seemed poised to swallow him whole. He strode up the cement steps, his feet moving across the familiar streets, though the rest of him remained awkward in his childhood haunt.
As the door swung closed behind him, he stowed away the uncertainty and strode to the front desk, his disposition darkening inside the office building, and eyebrows furrowing as he approached the receptionist.
"I'm here to see Harkin," the receptionist regarded him coolly at first before her face filled with recognition.
"Oh Mr. Jacobs, how nice it is to have you back!" she fawned.
"Well I'm trying to make this a quick visit, can you tell me why I'm here?" She threw a glance over her shoulder and he turned. Two novice legal assistants stood behind him, nervously shifting before one offered their hand.
He shook it half-heartedly and looked back and forth between the two of them. "And can either of you tell me why I'm here?"
They looked to each other and began talking simultaneously, though no coherent message made its way to David.
"Right," he regarded them with annoyance,"Well I'm just going to go this way," he motioned down the hall,"If you need me…"
They looked to each other once more as if to evaluate the merit of that plan, but David had already turned and started away from them.
"Ditched Markus and Harold, did you?" called a stiffly suited man from an office door.
"Might have, didn't catch their names, or much of anything else," David returned, and the man smirked.
"Walk with me Jacobs, I'll fill you in on the case."
"A case? Is that why I'm here? With all due respect, sir, was it necessary to bring me in from San Francisco? I'm sure there must be one or two competent lawyers somewhere in New York City."
"You haven't heard then."
"I haven't heard much of anything."
"This is the case, Jacobs. This is The Kings."
"The Kings?" David raised an eyebrow.
"Crime ring, far as we can figure, operating in Manhattan. Murder, robbery, that kind of thing. But they're small, they're organized, and they don't leave witnesses, been running circles around the police. The mayor ain't happy. And when the mayor ain't happy…"
"Nobody's happy. But why am I here?"
"We got one."
"You've got one."
"And you're his lawyer."
"…and I'm his lawyer… Who the hell planned this?"
"The Kings have been spreading it around - anyone who loses this case is going to lose more than that, if you catch my drift."
"So you ship me in here from California…"
"We ship you in, you lose the case, we ship you out, and The Kings ain't got a clue where to find you."
"I lose the case?"
"You're good Dave, but not this good, we've got him nailed, and even if we didn't…" The man gave David a hard pat on the back. "You remember how things work around here.
"Right," David mumbled under his breath,"I remember." The two men stepped into a small room with a viewing window into the next.
"The detective on the case'll be in to give you the details, and then you can meet your client." The man shook David's hand. "Good luck, Jacobs. This goes your way, and I hear the San Francisco office is looking for a new D.A…" As his boss left the way they'd come, another man stepped into the room through the opposite door.
"I'm Detective Green," he offered his hand,"And I'm assuming you're David Jacobs." He nodded. "Then let's get on with it. The suspect, your client, is one Andrew Marsden, charged in connection with three murders, from which he was seen fleeing the scene…you'll meet this charmer later. Firstly, we got ourselves a witness…"
"I thought they didn't leave witnesses…"
"They usually don't get arrested either," the officer retorted and turned back to the papers. "I've got her filed here as a Ms. Quin, figured you might want to talk to her 'fore we have to cut her lose." He pulled the shades open on the viewing room and David looked in at the young woman seated at the table.
"Ms. Quin, did you say? Is that a Ms. Harly Quin?"
"Uh…," thumbing through his paperwork, Det. Green looked up, dumbfounded,"Yes sir, a Ms. Harly Quin, how did you know that?"
"Just a guess," he smirked,"Can you let me in there?"
"And here I thought you'd have gone on to bigger and better things…," David mused, entering the room.
"Aren't we quick to judge? Looks like you've gone on to bigger and boring-er things," she retorted, gesturing to his suit and tie.
"Its been a long time," he set a clipboard on the table and pulled out a pen.
"Too long, but that ain't no fault of mine," she replied in a bitter tone. He ignored the resentment and flipped through his papers.
"How'd you get mixed up in this, Harly? Last time I heard, you'd gotten an apartment with Swifty and you were…"
"Yeah, that was the last time you checked," she cut him off sharply. "And the last time I checked, I wasn't mixed up in any of this, I was just a witness."
"Do you know an Andrew Marsden?" he could do nothing but forge ahead, and avoid the accusations of his running away lurking beneath the surface.
"Yeah I'd say I know him, I'd say you know him too…that is if you remember any of your old friends."
"Andrew Marsden…," he repeated to himself, not recognizing the name.
"Hey glum and dumb!" Harly smirked, leaning back in her chair.
"Skittery?" David asked in disbelief. She nodded, waiting for him to put it together.
"Skitts and the The Kings…," he thought out loud, his eyes flaring with sudden realization. She silenced him with a look, daring him to say anything more. He looked at her in disbelief.
"That makes the rest of The Kings…"
"None of anyone's business," she cut in harshly. "The boys have been busy while you've been away."
"…I grew up with them…," he muttered, flipping through the file of various offenses. Murder, theft, assault…
"Things change," she shrugged, having nothing to offer him. "Do you think you can get Skitts off?"
"Depends," David replied, gesturing to the file,"Did he really do all this?" She stared the table and didn't answer. He sighed heavily and sank further into his chair. Burying his head in his hands, he swore,"This was supposed be easy."
She watched him struggling in comprehension. "Life's not easy." Standing, she started towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm free to leave, aren't I? I am just a witness, who really didn't see anything at all," she cooed her reply, batting her eyelashes and twirling her hair. She flounced out of the room, and he watched her through the doorway pulling her act on the detective, whose initial protests were silenced as she bit her lip and let loose a pouty sigh.
Shaking his head, he followed her out into the hall, calling her name out onto the front steps, but she didn't turn until he caught her by the arm.
"I have a feeling if I let you go, you'll be hard to find…"
"Smart boy," she rolled her eyes.
"Mouth with a brain, remember?" She smiled at the long forgotten nickname and relaxed in his grip. "Look, I can help…"
"You want to?" She raised an eyebrow. He looked up at the sky scrapers, and realized they'd done it. Without warning, the city had seized upon him and swallowed him once more.
"Yeah, I do."
And there was nowhere to go but down.
"Done alright for yourself," she said, sweeping her finger along the velvet chaise in his hotel room. She motioned towards an item sitting on the counter. "I don't even know what that is." He picked it up, gave it a once over, setting it back down and answered with a shrug.
"Me neither."
"David…do you think you can handle this?" she asked, looking uncertainly at him. He'd loosened his tie and put his hands to his temples in an attempt to stem the radiating pain.
"Yeah, yeah, I get into this stuff all the time…lying, cheating, murder…," he waved her off as she sat beside him.
"It gets easier," she offered, but it sounded empty even to her.
"Thanks, that's comforting," he replied sarcastically, and the conversation fell into a lull. Finally, he spoke, pulling his head from his hands. "What happened? You were selling papers and now you're, you're…"
"The Lodging House only lasts so long," she attempted to explain, but knew she lacked the reasons,"Streets are hard, got no cash…can barely read, can't write a lick… So we did what we'd always done, we followed Jack."
"But he…"
"Yeah, he's lead us to an interesting situation, but at least he was here to lead, Dave, we ain't all got hoity-toity degrees hanging on our walls, or even walls for that matter."
"I'm sorry I left, alright? What do you want from me? I'm trying to help," he exclaimed, exacerbated. She stood up from the couch and backed away.
"If you're doing this out of guilt, or because you think you owe us something - forget it, you don't. It's called loyalty, Dave. If you do this, you do it because of that."
"Loyalty to what? To a bunch of thieves?" his frustration grew as he struggled to understand the fate of his childhood companions. Her eyes narrow into a glare, her hands clenching into fists, staring him down.
"Loyalty to your friends," she seethed through gritted teeth,"But I see you've forgotten who they are." She waited for him to answer, but he could find no reply, and she made towards the door.
"I look at you," she said, turning back. "And I don't see David. All I see is Mr. Jacobs, attorney at law. And I don't think I want to know him." With that, she slammed the door behind her, leaving him sinking into loneliness.
A bottle of whiskey later, the alcohol had dulled the loneliness, in addition to suppressing his inhibitions. Pulling himself to his feet in the dark hotel room, he found his way to the door and onto the streets, not knowing which was the larger motivating force - the alcohol, or his own drive to fix things. He was good, reliable David Jacobs. He could fix anything. Especially with a bottle of whiskey in his system.
His feet, making their haphazard path along the sidewalk, led him into the old neighborhood, past the square and distribution center, to the one place he knew he had a chance of finding someone. Tibby's sign had gone electric the year before he'd left, but the letters had burnt out in his absence. Didn't matter, he supposed, no one that still came here gave a damn about the electricity.
Billows of cigarette smoke met him at the door, with the old lunch counter serving as a bar. Decently busy, he supposed in his haze, as he scanned for familiar faces. The first he recognized had recognized him too - Harly had stopped in the middle of the room, holding a glass, mid-sentence, staring back, before she rolled her eyes and quickly made her way to the other side of the restaurant.
Working his way through the table to follow, he watched her reaching for the back door, but he pushed it close as he came up from behind her.
"Wait…" She turned to him, annoyed.
"Go home David, go back to California." He smiled at her, the alcohol taking its effect.
"But I don't wanna…," he teased in a childish manner, before she attempted to shove him away from her. He caught her hands as she thrust them at her. "You know," he said, leaning closer, his breath reeking of whiskey,"You're really pretty…" She jerked her hands away and backed against the wall, disgusted.
"Go home David - you're drunk."
"Yeah…and what if I am," he leaned closer again, reaching out to play with her hair, laughing to himself. "God…Swifty would kill me for this…" At that, she turned her head away from him sharply and shoved him back, her eyes tearing.
"Someone botherin' you here, Harly?" a voice cut in from behind. She wiped at her eyes harshly, nodding before she could steady her voice.
"Yeah, yeah he is," she said, turning to David,"You remember Snipeshooter, don't you Dave?" David looked back, to see Snipes standing several inches above him, looking down.
"Looks like the walkin' mouth found his way back into town," he rasped
"Yeah, sure does, and you know, I think you've grown. But really there's no problem here…" Snipes looked between Harly and the intoxicated David, questioningly. "I mean, I wasn't saying nothing, I was just leaving, just thought I'd check in on Harly, make sure no girl was alone on a night like this, 'cause you know, I didn't see Swifty around and…" Snipes' fist collided with David's face, knocking him backwards onto the floor.
Blinking in the light as he opened his eyes, from the floor David watched Harly step over him without looking down, escorted to the door by Snipes. Rubbing the back of his head, he managed to scramble to his feet to find the entire restaurant glaring at him.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked them, the blow to head having done nothing to sober him. Several obscene answers were thrown up from the crowd. "I'm David Jacobs - strike leader - remember me? You all listened to me, remember? You all depended on me! What're you looking at?" With that, he stumbled out the backdoor onto the street with a chorus of disapproval from the Tibby's patrons following him out into the night.
The morning found him strewn across his hotel floor, head pounding, ears ringing, and a nauseous feeling overtaking him. A knocking at his door had wrenched him from his alcohol-induced slumber.
Pulling the door open, another familiar face greeted him. "You look like sht, Jacobs," Jack Kelly ground his cigarette into the hotel carpeting, walking past David without a further word into the room. David shook his head in confusion, shutting the door, as he stalked into the bathroom for a wet wash cloth for his eye, which had swelled overnight.
Jack watched him from the living room, where David returned, holding the cloth to his eye.
"Guess you got a little lesson in loyalty last night, there Dave," he smirked, motioning to the nicely formed purple bruise. "Snipes' grown up big there, ain't he?" David answered him with a look, his head still aching and frustratingly short on comprehension and coherent sentences. "What? You don't even have a 'Hello, how ya' been?' for your old friend?"
"Lovely to see you this morning," David spat out sarcastically, collapsing on the couch.
"So let's cut the crap - I'm here 'bout Skitts - you're his lawyer, and you're not gonna lose, can we be clear on that one?" Jack sat across from him, and when David didn't answer, he continued,"Right, secondly, it has been made clear you have issues with our newfound professions, but, and I must make this second point crystal clear, everything you know about us stays between us - what's a few secrets between friends? And I still consider you a friend here, Dave," he leaned in closer,"Don't make me change my mind on that one." He stood up to leave, but David finally spoke.
"What happened to you?" he asked, accusingly.
"I could ask you the same question," Jack replied.
"You wanted to be a cowboy, ride horses, rope cattle…Santa Fe's a long way from this, Jack."
"Yeah, big sky, open air - I can see its down wonders for you. I look at you in your pressed, gray suits and your god damn ties laid out for the days of the week, and I know you've forgotten. You've forgotten the city, its alleys and bricks, you've forgotten that summer. You've forgotten what it means to rule the streets."
"I'm the one who's forgotten that summer? The summer when we made an honest living and we fought corruption? I'm not the one that's forgotten."
"It wasn't all so innocent as that - you're the only one that was ever innocent. So here's a big life lesson for you, Dave. Condemning everyone's just going to leave you lonely."
"But legal!" David called defiantly after him as he walked down the hall, but he didn't turn, and David was left with his stubborn answer echoing around him.
Half an hour later found David still sitting upon the couch, his door still open, having not moved from his former position. He could go home, he mused, but where was that? Some had found gold in California, but he'd found nothing but dust and an endless stream of busywork. Who had he been kidding? Home was here. California was an empty dream, and law was just a joke. The first remarkable incident of his life had involved breaking the very thing he had now attempted to devote his life to upholding.
She cut into his musings, knocking at the open door. She stood there, holding a small brown bag, looking uncertain as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. He looked up from the couch, squinting at the hallway light, unsure of what to say. She removed a cut of meat from the bag, and held it out.
"For your eye," she explained. "I feel bad about last night…"
He shook his head,"No you don't." She shrugged.
"You're right, I don't, but I thought…" He rose and crossed to the door, taking it from her.
"Thank you, and…I'm sorry."
"You were drunk, and you didn't know."
"I still don't. And I'm not even sure what it is I don't know."
"I thought Jack might have told you, you know, he usually does, to keep people from asking questions… Keeps 'em creeping around me like mice, careful not to disturb, you know."
"Yeah well I didn't give Jack much of a chance to talk…," he said expectantly, waiting for her to speak again.
"Right, well, let's put this on your eye," she said suddenly, changing the subject, shutting the door as she followed him to the couch.
"You're not going to tell me?" he said, when they stopped.
"Sit," she commanded, ignoring him, and unwrapping the steak. He obeyed, and she laid the meat across his quickly growing black eye.
"You've done this before," he commented, as she arranged it.
"Yeah well, in our line of work, people get hurt once in a whi…," she cut herself off, and turned away for a moment, to calm her shaky voice. "Once in a while," she finished, smiling at him, though her eyes had started to water.
"My turn," David pulled at her hands,"Sit." She sat beside him awkwardly, letting herself laugh a little as he turned to her, the steak covering half of his face. He laughed too, the first genuine laugh he'd had since he'd gotten off the train. "You know, I meant what I said last night…Not the bad parts or anything, but the part when, when I said you were beautiful…"
"You said I was pretty," she corrected him.
"That too," he whispered, setting the meat on the table, and leaning towards her. She tensed and edged backwards, but he pulled her to him in a kiss. When they pulled apart, she stared at him in surprise, and he kissed her again before she could say anything.
As the door swung closed behind him, he stowed away the uncertainty and strode to the front desk, his disposition darkening inside the office building, and eyebrows furrowing as he approached the receptionist.
"I'm here to see Harkin," the receptionist regarded him coolly at first before her face filled with recognition.
"Oh Mr. Jacobs, how nice it is to have you back!" she fawned.
"Well I'm trying to make this a quick visit, can you tell me why I'm here?" She threw a glance over her shoulder and he turned. Two novice legal assistants stood behind him, nervously shifting before one offered their hand.
He shook it half-heartedly and looked back and forth between the two of them. "And can either of you tell me why I'm here?"
They looked to each other and began talking simultaneously, though no coherent message made its way to David.
"Right," he regarded them with annoyance,"Well I'm just going to go this way," he motioned down the hall,"If you need me…"
They looked to each other once more as if to evaluate the merit of that plan, but David had already turned and started away from them.
"Ditched Markus and Harold, did you?" called a stiffly suited man from an office door.
"Might have, didn't catch their names, or much of anything else," David returned, and the man smirked.
"Walk with me Jacobs, I'll fill you in on the case."
"A case? Is that why I'm here? With all due respect, sir, was it necessary to bring me in from San Francisco? I'm sure there must be one or two competent lawyers somewhere in New York City."
"You haven't heard then."
"I haven't heard much of anything."
"This is the case, Jacobs. This is The Kings."
"The Kings?" David raised an eyebrow.
"Crime ring, far as we can figure, operating in Manhattan. Murder, robbery, that kind of thing. But they're small, they're organized, and they don't leave witnesses, been running circles around the police. The mayor ain't happy. And when the mayor ain't happy…"
"Nobody's happy. But why am I here?"
"We got one."
"You've got one."
"And you're his lawyer."
"…and I'm his lawyer… Who the hell planned this?"
"The Kings have been spreading it around - anyone who loses this case is going to lose more than that, if you catch my drift."
"So you ship me in here from California…"
"We ship you in, you lose the case, we ship you out, and The Kings ain't got a clue where to find you."
"I lose the case?"
"You're good Dave, but not this good, we've got him nailed, and even if we didn't…" The man gave David a hard pat on the back. "You remember how things work around here.
"Right," David mumbled under his breath,"I remember." The two men stepped into a small room with a viewing window into the next.
"The detective on the case'll be in to give you the details, and then you can meet your client." The man shook David's hand. "Good luck, Jacobs. This goes your way, and I hear the San Francisco office is looking for a new D.A…" As his boss left the way they'd come, another man stepped into the room through the opposite door.
"I'm Detective Green," he offered his hand,"And I'm assuming you're David Jacobs." He nodded. "Then let's get on with it. The suspect, your client, is one Andrew Marsden, charged in connection with three murders, from which he was seen fleeing the scene…you'll meet this charmer later. Firstly, we got ourselves a witness…"
"I thought they didn't leave witnesses…"
"They usually don't get arrested either," the officer retorted and turned back to the papers. "I've got her filed here as a Ms. Quin, figured you might want to talk to her 'fore we have to cut her lose." He pulled the shades open on the viewing room and David looked in at the young woman seated at the table.
"Ms. Quin, did you say? Is that a Ms. Harly Quin?"
"Uh…," thumbing through his paperwork, Det. Green looked up, dumbfounded,"Yes sir, a Ms. Harly Quin, how did you know that?"
"Just a guess," he smirked,"Can you let me in there?"
"And here I thought you'd have gone on to bigger and better things…," David mused, entering the room.
"Aren't we quick to judge? Looks like you've gone on to bigger and boring-er things," she retorted, gesturing to his suit and tie.
"Its been a long time," he set a clipboard on the table and pulled out a pen.
"Too long, but that ain't no fault of mine," she replied in a bitter tone. He ignored the resentment and flipped through his papers.
"How'd you get mixed up in this, Harly? Last time I heard, you'd gotten an apartment with Swifty and you were…"
"Yeah, that was the last time you checked," she cut him off sharply. "And the last time I checked, I wasn't mixed up in any of this, I was just a witness."
"Do you know an Andrew Marsden?" he could do nothing but forge ahead, and avoid the accusations of his running away lurking beneath the surface.
"Yeah I'd say I know him, I'd say you know him too…that is if you remember any of your old friends."
"Andrew Marsden…," he repeated to himself, not recognizing the name.
"Hey glum and dumb!" Harly smirked, leaning back in her chair.
"Skittery?" David asked in disbelief. She nodded, waiting for him to put it together.
"Skitts and the The Kings…," he thought out loud, his eyes flaring with sudden realization. She silenced him with a look, daring him to say anything more. He looked at her in disbelief.
"That makes the rest of The Kings…"
"None of anyone's business," she cut in harshly. "The boys have been busy while you've been away."
"…I grew up with them…," he muttered, flipping through the file of various offenses. Murder, theft, assault…
"Things change," she shrugged, having nothing to offer him. "Do you think you can get Skitts off?"
"Depends," David replied, gesturing to the file,"Did he really do all this?" She stared the table and didn't answer. He sighed heavily and sank further into his chair. Burying his head in his hands, he swore,"This was supposed be easy."
She watched him struggling in comprehension. "Life's not easy." Standing, she started towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm free to leave, aren't I? I am just a witness, who really didn't see anything at all," she cooed her reply, batting her eyelashes and twirling her hair. She flounced out of the room, and he watched her through the doorway pulling her act on the detective, whose initial protests were silenced as she bit her lip and let loose a pouty sigh.
Shaking his head, he followed her out into the hall, calling her name out onto the front steps, but she didn't turn until he caught her by the arm.
"I have a feeling if I let you go, you'll be hard to find…"
"Smart boy," she rolled her eyes.
"Mouth with a brain, remember?" She smiled at the long forgotten nickname and relaxed in his grip. "Look, I can help…"
"You want to?" She raised an eyebrow. He looked up at the sky scrapers, and realized they'd done it. Without warning, the city had seized upon him and swallowed him once more.
"Yeah, I do."
And there was nowhere to go but down.
"Done alright for yourself," she said, sweeping her finger along the velvet chaise in his hotel room. She motioned towards an item sitting on the counter. "I don't even know what that is." He picked it up, gave it a once over, setting it back down and answered with a shrug.
"Me neither."
"David…do you think you can handle this?" she asked, looking uncertainly at him. He'd loosened his tie and put his hands to his temples in an attempt to stem the radiating pain.
"Yeah, yeah, I get into this stuff all the time…lying, cheating, murder…," he waved her off as she sat beside him.
"It gets easier," she offered, but it sounded empty even to her.
"Thanks, that's comforting," he replied sarcastically, and the conversation fell into a lull. Finally, he spoke, pulling his head from his hands. "What happened? You were selling papers and now you're, you're…"
"The Lodging House only lasts so long," she attempted to explain, but knew she lacked the reasons,"Streets are hard, got no cash…can barely read, can't write a lick… So we did what we'd always done, we followed Jack."
"But he…"
"Yeah, he's lead us to an interesting situation, but at least he was here to lead, Dave, we ain't all got hoity-toity degrees hanging on our walls, or even walls for that matter."
"I'm sorry I left, alright? What do you want from me? I'm trying to help," he exclaimed, exacerbated. She stood up from the couch and backed away.
"If you're doing this out of guilt, or because you think you owe us something - forget it, you don't. It's called loyalty, Dave. If you do this, you do it because of that."
"Loyalty to what? To a bunch of thieves?" his frustration grew as he struggled to understand the fate of his childhood companions. Her eyes narrow into a glare, her hands clenching into fists, staring him down.
"Loyalty to your friends," she seethed through gritted teeth,"But I see you've forgotten who they are." She waited for him to answer, but he could find no reply, and she made towards the door.
"I look at you," she said, turning back. "And I don't see David. All I see is Mr. Jacobs, attorney at law. And I don't think I want to know him." With that, she slammed the door behind her, leaving him sinking into loneliness.
A bottle of whiskey later, the alcohol had dulled the loneliness, in addition to suppressing his inhibitions. Pulling himself to his feet in the dark hotel room, he found his way to the door and onto the streets, not knowing which was the larger motivating force - the alcohol, or his own drive to fix things. He was good, reliable David Jacobs. He could fix anything. Especially with a bottle of whiskey in his system.
His feet, making their haphazard path along the sidewalk, led him into the old neighborhood, past the square and distribution center, to the one place he knew he had a chance of finding someone. Tibby's sign had gone electric the year before he'd left, but the letters had burnt out in his absence. Didn't matter, he supposed, no one that still came here gave a damn about the electricity.
Billows of cigarette smoke met him at the door, with the old lunch counter serving as a bar. Decently busy, he supposed in his haze, as he scanned for familiar faces. The first he recognized had recognized him too - Harly had stopped in the middle of the room, holding a glass, mid-sentence, staring back, before she rolled her eyes and quickly made her way to the other side of the restaurant.
Working his way through the table to follow, he watched her reaching for the back door, but he pushed it close as he came up from behind her.
"Wait…" She turned to him, annoyed.
"Go home David, go back to California." He smiled at her, the alcohol taking its effect.
"But I don't wanna…," he teased in a childish manner, before she attempted to shove him away from her. He caught her hands as she thrust them at her. "You know," he said, leaning closer, his breath reeking of whiskey,"You're really pretty…" She jerked her hands away and backed against the wall, disgusted.
"Go home David - you're drunk."
"Yeah…and what if I am," he leaned closer again, reaching out to play with her hair, laughing to himself. "God…Swifty would kill me for this…" At that, she turned her head away from him sharply and shoved him back, her eyes tearing.
"Someone botherin' you here, Harly?" a voice cut in from behind. She wiped at her eyes harshly, nodding before she could steady her voice.
"Yeah, yeah he is," she said, turning to David,"You remember Snipeshooter, don't you Dave?" David looked back, to see Snipes standing several inches above him, looking down.
"Looks like the walkin' mouth found his way back into town," he rasped
"Yeah, sure does, and you know, I think you've grown. But really there's no problem here…" Snipes looked between Harly and the intoxicated David, questioningly. "I mean, I wasn't saying nothing, I was just leaving, just thought I'd check in on Harly, make sure no girl was alone on a night like this, 'cause you know, I didn't see Swifty around and…" Snipes' fist collided with David's face, knocking him backwards onto the floor.
Blinking in the light as he opened his eyes, from the floor David watched Harly step over him without looking down, escorted to the door by Snipes. Rubbing the back of his head, he managed to scramble to his feet to find the entire restaurant glaring at him.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked them, the blow to head having done nothing to sober him. Several obscene answers were thrown up from the crowd. "I'm David Jacobs - strike leader - remember me? You all listened to me, remember? You all depended on me! What're you looking at?" With that, he stumbled out the backdoor onto the street with a chorus of disapproval from the Tibby's patrons following him out into the night.
The morning found him strewn across his hotel floor, head pounding, ears ringing, and a nauseous feeling overtaking him. A knocking at his door had wrenched him from his alcohol-induced slumber.
Pulling the door open, another familiar face greeted him. "You look like sht, Jacobs," Jack Kelly ground his cigarette into the hotel carpeting, walking past David without a further word into the room. David shook his head in confusion, shutting the door, as he stalked into the bathroom for a wet wash cloth for his eye, which had swelled overnight.
Jack watched him from the living room, where David returned, holding the cloth to his eye.
"Guess you got a little lesson in loyalty last night, there Dave," he smirked, motioning to the nicely formed purple bruise. "Snipes' grown up big there, ain't he?" David answered him with a look, his head still aching and frustratingly short on comprehension and coherent sentences. "What? You don't even have a 'Hello, how ya' been?' for your old friend?"
"Lovely to see you this morning," David spat out sarcastically, collapsing on the couch.
"So let's cut the crap - I'm here 'bout Skitts - you're his lawyer, and you're not gonna lose, can we be clear on that one?" Jack sat across from him, and when David didn't answer, he continued,"Right, secondly, it has been made clear you have issues with our newfound professions, but, and I must make this second point crystal clear, everything you know about us stays between us - what's a few secrets between friends? And I still consider you a friend here, Dave," he leaned in closer,"Don't make me change my mind on that one." He stood up to leave, but David finally spoke.
"What happened to you?" he asked, accusingly.
"I could ask you the same question," Jack replied.
"You wanted to be a cowboy, ride horses, rope cattle…Santa Fe's a long way from this, Jack."
"Yeah, big sky, open air - I can see its down wonders for you. I look at you in your pressed, gray suits and your god damn ties laid out for the days of the week, and I know you've forgotten. You've forgotten the city, its alleys and bricks, you've forgotten that summer. You've forgotten what it means to rule the streets."
"I'm the one who's forgotten that summer? The summer when we made an honest living and we fought corruption? I'm not the one that's forgotten."
"It wasn't all so innocent as that - you're the only one that was ever innocent. So here's a big life lesson for you, Dave. Condemning everyone's just going to leave you lonely."
"But legal!" David called defiantly after him as he walked down the hall, but he didn't turn, and David was left with his stubborn answer echoing around him.
Half an hour later found David still sitting upon the couch, his door still open, having not moved from his former position. He could go home, he mused, but where was that? Some had found gold in California, but he'd found nothing but dust and an endless stream of busywork. Who had he been kidding? Home was here. California was an empty dream, and law was just a joke. The first remarkable incident of his life had involved breaking the very thing he had now attempted to devote his life to upholding.
She cut into his musings, knocking at the open door. She stood there, holding a small brown bag, looking uncertain as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. He looked up from the couch, squinting at the hallway light, unsure of what to say. She removed a cut of meat from the bag, and held it out.
"For your eye," she explained. "I feel bad about last night…"
He shook his head,"No you don't." She shrugged.
"You're right, I don't, but I thought…" He rose and crossed to the door, taking it from her.
"Thank you, and…I'm sorry."
"You were drunk, and you didn't know."
"I still don't. And I'm not even sure what it is I don't know."
"I thought Jack might have told you, you know, he usually does, to keep people from asking questions… Keeps 'em creeping around me like mice, careful not to disturb, you know."
"Yeah well I didn't give Jack much of a chance to talk…," he said expectantly, waiting for her to speak again.
"Right, well, let's put this on your eye," she said suddenly, changing the subject, shutting the door as she followed him to the couch.
"You're not going to tell me?" he said, when they stopped.
"Sit," she commanded, ignoring him, and unwrapping the steak. He obeyed, and she laid the meat across his quickly growing black eye.
"You've done this before," he commented, as she arranged it.
"Yeah well, in our line of work, people get hurt once in a whi…," she cut herself off, and turned away for a moment, to calm her shaky voice. "Once in a while," she finished, smiling at him, though her eyes had started to water.
"My turn," David pulled at her hands,"Sit." She sat beside him awkwardly, letting herself laugh a little as he turned to her, the steak covering half of his face. He laughed too, the first genuine laugh he'd had since he'd gotten off the train. "You know, I meant what I said last night…Not the bad parts or anything, but the part when, when I said you were beautiful…"
"You said I was pretty," she corrected him.
"That too," he whispered, setting the meat on the table, and leaning towards her. She tensed and edged backwards, but he pulled her to him in a kiss. When they pulled apart, she stared at him in surprise, and he kissed her again before she could say anything.