A/N: And at last, the chapter all of you have been waiting for…the Fever scene! This remains possibly my favorite sequence throughout the movie. And there are a lot of good sequences, y'know? (of course you know, otherwise you wouldn't be reading Collateral fanfic). I just hope I didn't blow it. I just get in a hurry to post the next chapter, because I live for the reviews...if I really bombed it I'm totally open to adjusting it. So without further ado…
Chapter Eight: Everything But The Polish CavalryCallie had been to a few nightclubs in her day, but not many. Fever was nothing like she'd ever set foot inside.
It was a black-lit swamp of writhing bodies and thrumming music. The close atmosphere was nearly claustrophobic, even though the main room itself stretched for thousands of yards. Screens filled the upper part of all the walls, lining the ceiling, each showing images of people dancing and doing other things that looked erotic at the subliminal-quick flash they went across her field of vision.
It was long after midnight. It had to be getting close to one in the morning. It was a weeknight and this place was singing like a beehive in the middle of September. Still, the people came, in and out, running to and fro across the street, some drunk out of their minds, high, or both, and the occasional one that was fresh for the taking, ready to lose their sanity and their sobriety to the fever pitch that was the Korean club called Fever.
Somehow, they had managed to leave the cab in the large alley behind the building, which was just as busy as the front entrance, with people swarming in and out at their own pace with the occasional bouncer keeping anyone from idling too long. This wasn't some exclusive place where you had to pay to get past the front doorman, it had its own unique system and Callie had no inclination to decipher at the moment. She numbly followed Vincent's lead as he dragged her out of the driver's seat and into the narrow doorway of the club.
Outside, it had been cold. Inside, it sweltered with the heat of moving bodies. A thin haze filled the air above them, and whether it was some kind of mist effect or the steam rising from the flesh, Callie couldn't tell. She noticed that the far walls were much nicer than the ones around the common dancing floor – although where the dance floor started and ended, she had no idea, as everything seemed to be one giant wiggling mass of arms and legs. There was the soothing effect of running water down several of the transparent fiberglass walls, and around the bar area. How anyone could need anything soothing in this place was beyond her.
Then again, at this moment, it was all beyond her. Callie had lapsed into a state of utter apathy. Her brain had overloaded on the night's events, and now she was a zombie, an empty puppet letting Vincent pull her strings.
He made her walk in front of him. He murmured in her ear, just loud enough for her to make out, "One step ahead, one pace to the left." She wasn't quite sure how she followed those directions, but there was no jerking hand, nothing to correct her. She must be doing something right.
Or maybe, a dry little voice commented from the center of her brain that still cared, you've wandered too far from him and he just hasn't noticed.
She was surprised to find her chin swinging around to make sure he was still there, and sure enough she caught the flash of silver-gray at her shoulder. He darted a look at her, his eyes flickering silvery-blue in the black-light. But no, he was occupied with other things. She turned her head back, nearly rolling her eyes.
Wake up, girl. This is still serious business.
Her eyes wandered around the room. Everyone here was skinny and beautiful…well, maybe beautiful was an exaggeration, but they were certainly shapely made in this end of town. Delicately, graceful arms lifted in the air, swaying to the beat, hips jerking back and forth in distinctly sexual motions, legs long and slender, narrow hips, perky breasts. Even the men were pretty, flopping their manes of straight hair that either hung black or had the distinct multi-colored hue of Hot Topic hair dyes.
She didn't belong here. It occurred to her that Vincent didn't belong here, either, but maybe Vincent just didn't belong anywhere, so what did that matter?
Vincent…she felt a low level thrum of anger in the back of her skull. Vincent, who had manipulated her this entire evening. Vincent, who had forced her and coerced her and taken advantage of her at every turn, and when that didn't work, he resorted to bullying or brute force. Vincent, with his features of a Roman god, his eyes like emerald pools, a smile that rivaled the sun, and hands that made her melt with their knowing touch, all the right pressure in all the right places. Vincent with his gun and his briefcase and his expensive gray suit.
She was clenching her teeth when he stopped her. The motion sent a jolt through her stomach that she recognized as pure animal fear. It passed, but left a nasty wake of loathing and resentment behind, causing her eyebrows to permanently furrow and make a line between her eyes.
"Move fifteen paces in front, three to the left. Wander, and innocent bystanders get the first rounds."
She blinked, then looked toward where he indicated. It was close to the bar, at an empty spot that she could reach if she moved quickly enough. He wanted her to wait.
"Why the hell don't you just leave me here?" she said over her shoulder, and then thought her voice might be too low for him to hear.
She felt his eyes turn on her. She moved her head, then her body, wanting to face him, wanting to stare him down. Somehow, being surrounded by people seemed to make her feel safer, even though she knew damn well that Vincent would start shooting every living thing he saw if he felt so inclined.
The look on his face warned her, plainly. Just do as you're told.
She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to ask him why the hell didn't he just either let her go, or shoot her then and there. She was tired, she didn't want this anymore. She was sick, sick with the emotional pain of being jerked around like a toy all night, being swung back and forth between the line of exhilaration and terror.
He had looked away for a moment, his eyes anxiously searching. Apparently, he'd found what he'd come for – or rather, who – and was anxious to get on with his business. He darted her another glance, this time with an eyebrow mildly raised. What are you waiting for?
She turned, obeyed. The space by the bar was temporarily closed, but managed to just open again by the time she reached it.
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"What the fuck is that?" Ray snapped, although he knew perfectly well what it was. It was a taxi.
The hit man was already here.
The FBI had long since arrived, their cars parked in all sorts of illegal positions with their red lights flashing to indicate they could do as they needed.
Richard was rather calm as they got out of the car and headed for the narrow back entrance. Ray took a slight detour and headed for the driver's side window of the cab, checking.
"Ray, come on," Richard called, not wanting the man to do something stupid, like panic. Ray wasn't necessarily inclined to panic, he was very much by the book, very good at doing the procedure, and for those reasons, he was usually quite successful. But when it came to his family, especially his sister, he had a tendency to go a little nuts.
Ray bent down, raised a hand to ward off the streetlight glare on the window, and peered inside. Sitting on the driver's seat was a hat. A hat of blue suede, a hat his sister usually wore. And her scarf was slung over the back of the passenger seat.
Just then, the cellular phone at Richard's waist went off. Ray nearly jumped, eyes wide, temporarily frozen in a moment of panic. Richard answered; there was police jargon, and then finally a name.
"Detective Ray Fanning," came the crackling voice. Richard lifted the phone away from his lips, like a police radio, so Ray could hear it.
"This is Detective Widener, I'm with Detective Fanning," he said.
"Officer Cervantes just radioed in with an urgent message for you," came the voice, undistinguishable at the moment, as Ray was already grasping for the phone. It continued, unhindered. "She reports that your sister, Calliope Fanning, was just reported as being involved in a high speed pursuit in" Cackling static cut off the location.
"Repeat, this is Fanning, repeat," Ray said.
"Officer reported down. Calliope Fanning was the driver of a taxi, with an unidentified man in the back seat being the shooter. When the cab was pulled over for a shattered windshield, she refused to exit the vehicle and then proceeded to drive off. They were last seen heading into L.A.X., but their location is now uncertain."
Richard scowled. Some shoddy police work, that's what it was. Even he, being as laid back as he was, wasn't so sloppy. And no doubt, it was someone who owed Ray a huge favor that was making this call go through.
Ray looked back at the taxi. The windshield was shattered.
"Report that I have apprehended the vehicle," Fanning said, juggling the phone against his ear as he grasped for his wallet. "In pursuit of Calliope Fanning and unidentified assailant."
"Negative, Detective," the voice said, which sounded more distinguishable by the second. "Allow Detective Widener to apprehend Ms. Fanning. I shouldn't even be telling you this shit, anyway."
Ray slapped the phone shut and tossed it back at Richard. Richard barely managed to stuff it away before they were both inside the nightclub, just barely catching up to the small team of F.B.I. agents preparing to storm the front.
Pedrosa had his team getting ready to go into the thick of the nightclub. Fanning caught up with him just by the skin of his teeth. Irritated to find this L.A.P.D. detective following them, he almost turned away and ignored the intrusion, until Fanning grabbed him hard by his elbow and shoved a picture into his face.
"Look for this girl," he said. "It's my sister."
"What the fuck—?"
"Whoever our meat-eater super assassin is," Fanning barked, "he's with her. Look for her, and you'll find him."
Reluctantly, Pedrosa took the picture. He couldn't really argue with that kind of logic.
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Vincent had spotted his target. Sitting at a booth against a far wall, in an elusive, exclusive area of the club, Peter Wu, target number four, lounged with a flock of bodyguards around him.
Bodyguards…well, it was standard. Three rings of them, one patrolling the outer floor, moving back and forth like sharks in the shallows, a second one like a wall around the booth, and the third just behind the booth, all of them armed.
It was time. Vincent's mind went effectively blank and slipped into pure stalking mode. He chose a guard, and he attacked.
Weaving through the crowd like a panther through the jungle brush, he slipped between three girls who were bouncing together like a sex sandwich without noticing them. He came up behind the first guard, and sent a paralyzing kick to the small of his back, bruising spine and crippling him. Catching him in his hands, Vincent wrenched his neck and then threw him forcefully to the ground, sending one last crushing kick with his heel into the soft windpipe. Without looking down, he moved on.
The next one came a little harder, because as soon as Vincent had the guy on the ground with a heavy kick to the back of his leg, throwing the knee out backwards, and then a few hard punches. Vincent's teeth gritted with the effort, and to his amazement, he found himself…actually enjoying kicking the crap out of a few people.
There was a nasty voice in the back of his head. Little Callie's got you all riled up. All hot and bothered.
The third guard came, and Vincent knew his cover was blown. Even in this sea of bodies, someone was bound to notice the downing of the guards. But no matter, he easily counter-assaulted the man and then drew his weapon, pointing it at his temple, the back of his hand flush against the side of the man's face, just in case he had to fire. He hated getting brains on his face.
Like that, he started to make his way through the crowd, with a bit less trouble this time. People were cowards, generally, and not one of those pretty little dancers was going to fuck with a guy holding a gun to another man's head, moving purposefully through the throng.
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Callie didn't see much. She caught motions, waves through the crowd of the chaos that Vincent was creating, but nothing was enough to start these cows into a stampede. Then, she happened to look over her shoulder, and her brother's face suddenly appeared.
She started. What the hell was Ray doing here? He never messed around on the clock, so that had to mean…
Holy shit, they'd called it in and word had come down the pipe. But how in the hell had it happened so fast? There was no way Ray had gotten over here so fast. He must have been close by at the time.
The goose pimples rose around her cheeks, a sure sign of her exhilaration. He'd been following Vincent's trail, that had to be it.
Not thinking, she turned away. All she could think of was the dead bodies, those two kids in the alley, the jazz man slumped over the table, the loud thunder of Vincent's gun exploding as she'd driven away from those two patrol officers. She couldn't let that happen to Ray.
Ray was tracking Vincent. He'd been finding the dead bodies and somehow it had led him here. As soon as she turned her head, her eyes landed on something equally upsetting.
F.B.I. agents.
It wasn't that they were particularly conspicuous, or that she was particularly astute. They just stuck out pretty badly in the middle of this club filled with Korean dancers – a big fat white guy and his pretty African-American woman partner, her with her gun drawn, him with a piece of paper in one hand and grasping at his lapel mike with the other.
The man's eyes landed on her. Recognition flared. She turned away again.
Only to run smack into Richard Widener, whom she had only met once and hardly recognized. It was the fact that he recognized her, and called her by name.
"Callie, we're getting you out of here."
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Vincent caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The thriving movement wasn't enough to block his senses from picking out something unusual, which was Callie. She wasn't following orders. She was starting to leave her designated area. Vincent's teeth ground in frustration, he was much too busy to deal with her shit at the moment.
Then he saw someone come up to her. Someone who had a cop's appearance.
That was when all hell broke loose.
There was firing coming from Peter Lim's table. Vincent saw a white man in a suit struggling with one of the Korean bodyguards in the inner circle, both of them grasping at a gun. The gun had gone off, into the crowd, and someone went down.
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Ray grasped her arm. She spun, looking up into his eyes, knowing it was all falling apart around her, disintegrating like a sugar cube in a cup of hot water. She thought he might be angry, but instead, he looked tremendously relieved.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" they said to each other at the same time, but both voices lacked venom. She wanted to hug him, wanted to rest her head against his shoulder and feel his strong arm around her back, telling her it was going to be okay, just like her father would do. It was a shame that one never appreciated one's family until the circumstances were so dire. At that moment, Callie fully realized how much she truly adored her brother.
Richard yanked her away. "I'm getting her out of here," he said.
Ray nodded. Yes, it was better if she go with Richard. Cops weren't supposed to get involved in family matters on the job. It just messed up their judgment. "Yeah, please, get her out of here." Then his dark eyes narrowed on her, the cop now looking out, plain as the nose on his face. "Who are you here with?"
"Gray hair," was all she could say, and Ray looked up, his eyes scanning the sea of dark heads that had began to stampede, now, finally, that there was a bullet in one of them, God knew who. He nodded, giving her a little push, and Richard started to drag her toward the exit.
It was slow going.
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Vincent dropped the guard, letting him fall onto the ground like the useless sack of meat he had become. He moved deeper into the crowd, now fighting against the chaos, a salmon swimming upstream. But suddenly the piranha were all around him, grasping him on every side.
One of them had a metal stick of some kind. Vincent felt the sharp thwack of it against his wrist, causing a high-pitched sting and then a throbbing welt.
He looked up.
Callie was between two men. One of them had a rather intimate set of body language when it came to her. The look on his face…like he wanted to kiss her. But the other one dragged her away.
They were taking her away.
Vincent glared, willing her to look at him. Her eyes turned as she was pulled away from the more familiar man, and briefly dragged across him.
He glared harder. It held. She nearly stumbled in mid-step, startled by the distant face. Distance made no difference to the intensity of that look.
The men around him were pulling and yanking and generally being very annoying. Feeling a surge of adrenaline, Vincent reached into his pocket and pulled out his switchblade, then embedded it into the nearest thigh he could find that wasn't his. Someone screamed; the crowd around him broke.
Still simmering, Vincent threw punches, grabbed the thin metal stick and did some swinging of his own, catching one or two of them across the face. He swung so hard, one of them slumped unconscious in mid-flop, and then abruptly came toppling down onto Vincent.
He caught the bodyguard drawing on him out of the corner of his eye. Falling back with the body on top of him, he used it as a shield from the incoming fire. Just as the bullets riddled the body, Vincent spun away, sliding across the now-cleared floor to his gun, and brought it up, knees bent and legs parted, firing a straight line, right into the body-guard's chest.
Vincent got onto his knees with the kind of versatility that would have made an Olympic gymnast jealous. He fired again, catching the guard in the head and taking out a few others that looked like they wanted to play, too. Then he got onto his feet and pushed the rest of the way, right up to Peter Lim.
The coward of a man was attempting to use the cheap whores around him as shields, but they were having none of it. The remaining guard from behind was on the edge of the seat, trying to pull Lim out of the way.
Vincent shot him in a blink. He put the last two bullets in his clip right into Lim's chest.
The gun was empty.
Vincent slid out the next clip. His mind briefly registered that his pocket felt lighter than it should, but there wasn't time to worry about it. He shot once more into Lim's chest, and then right into his forehead. The man hadn't been pretty to start with. Now he was just repulsive.
Smoothly, Vincent turned and headed out of the club. Callie was out of sight…for the moment.
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Richard was behind her now, propelling her forward. Callie moved down the stairs in a nearly trance-like state, and marveled secretly how this was possibly her first moment of the evenly truly away from Vincent.
The narrow door that led out into the alley was wide open and alive with the people pouring out like ants. Screams and shrieks could be heard echoing up and down the alley, the police were on their way, helicopters screamed above them, their bright lights sweeping over the crowd.
Richard had let go of her. She moved onward, oblivious, seeing nothing. Was it true? Was she free? Was this horrible and confusing even finally over?
She stopped, turned, caught the strange, acrid smell of the L.A. night air and watched as Richard made his way out of the doorway behind her.
And was abruptly shot down by three familiar rounds, two to the chest and one to the head. He fell back against the doorjamb, slid down, slumped and lay still.
Callie turned around, her expression frozen into one of horror. Vincent was behind her at the open driver's door of the cab, looking up and down the alley, around every which way, and making his way toward her, gun out.
"Come on!" he said, then moved faster when he realized she wasn't moving. He grabbed her by the sleeve of her coat and yanked, and she nearly stumbled against him.
The despair was utter, crushing, and black.
He dragged her back jerkily toward the car, still looking around, compulsively watching everything, his attention scattered all over the chaos, but his grip firm on her. She couldn't get free – in his current state he would definitely shoot her before he even fully realized what she was doing.
She couldn't escape. He wouldn't let her go. And she didn't understand why.
Before she knew it, she was behind the wheel, staring numbly out the fractured glass of the windshield, looking down the alley at the cars that lined her way.
"Now drive!" Vincent ordered, then, louder, "Drive!"
She realized that the car was running. She pushed the gear into D and pressed the accelerator. She didn't realize that she'd sideswiped the other cars around her until it was much too late and they were already back out onto the open streets.
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The state of shock that had settled on her wasn't nearly as paralyzing as it would have been if the incident had occurred earlier in the evening. Vincent's violent behavior had deadened her to the reality of the situation, and instead of the sickening repulsion she felt at the fact that she had actually witnessed him drop a body, she found her key emotion was anger.
Not just anger, though, oh no. This was a seething kind of heat, making her mute with its force. Her jaw clenched, her teeth grinding together as she glared at the road, her hands so tight against the wheel that her fingers were losing circulation.
"Everything but the Polish Cavalry," Vincent quipped breathlessly. He was moving all over the back seat, his head craning every which way, looking out the back window, the side windows, occasionally glancing out the front. "We're lucky to be alive."
She moved only her eyes up toward the rearview mirror, and managed to catch his eye. Her rage was written on every line around her mouth.
"What, don't I get any thanks?" he snapped.
"Thanks for what?" she growled.
"They were arresting you," he said. "They think you're my accomplice. I saved you."
She drew in a hissing breath. "No, you didn't. That was my brother's partner you shot."
"Your brother?"
"My brother, the cop!" she snapped back, her tone matching his. "And his partner Richard, that you murdered!"
"Oh, so I should have stopped and asked him first what he was doing before I shot him?"
She opened her mouth to reply, found too many horrid things wanting to crawl out to assault him, and then snapped her mouth shut.
"I go through a lot of trouble for you, and all you can do is clam up," he muttered, his eyes going out the back window.
"Fuck you!" she hissed, remembering, briefly, those days when she was a pre-teen, and her mother was alive, and they would fight about things that girls fought with their mothers about, and she would walk away, wanting so badly to have the last word, and managing only those two words, too soft to be effectual, or to get her into worse trouble.
Vincent heard them. "Hey, at least I didn't shoot your brother," he pointed out.
"Oh, and I'm supposed to—" she cut herself off, her fist balling up and then slamming against the wheel. "What the hell is going on?"
"As in?"
"As in, why the hell are you murdering all these people?" She had ceased to make any sense of her emotions, and had reverted back to pure, simple knowledge. She had to know why she was suffering like this, what was the purpose of it all? "What the hell did any of them ever do to deserve you?"
"How the hell should I know?" Vincent returned, equally annoyed by not nearly matching her frustration. "They all have the same, witness-for-the-prosecution-look to me. Some major federal indictment for someone who majorly does not want to get indicted."
Disgusted, she spat, "So that's the reason."
"No, that's the why. There is no reason. There's no good reason, there's no bad reason to live or to die."
She looked up into the rearview again, her face losing the mask of rage and shock. Suddenly, everything came into incredibly sharp focus, as if she had just adjusted her lens through which she saw her life.
"What…what is with you?" she whispered.
He looked at her, and she swore she caught the mild flicker of alarm in those ice-green orbs. "As in?" he repeated.
She turned away, struggling with herself. "You…you murder people. For a living. Someone pays you and you kill whoever they want you to kill. How much is the going rate for a human life today? I'm really curious."
"Depends on the life," he said.
"What, how hard they are to get to? How difficult the target is to reach?"
"Something like that." His voice was unsure, most likely thrown by her sarcasm. She hadn't been too sarcastic with him. In fact, until that moment, she'd been pretty meek.
That moment was over.
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A/N Pt. 1: Thanks to my loyal reviewers, who all risked their lives (and libidos) in the taxi ride through the airport with Vincent. Now if all of you would be so kind as to return his clothes, so he can get out…
A/N Pt. 2: Just to give all of you a head's up, I'm probably going to be ending this story after the next two chapters...but never fear, because over the last few days a serious sequal has been sneaking around my head, and I finally found the major plotline to carry it through! So there will be a sequel, which I will start posting as soon as I can. (Which should reassure some of you out there about Vincent's fate, especially after what I did at the end of Purity...heh heh...)
A/N Pt. 3: Hope everybody has a happy, blessed and joyous Easter!
