12 – In Your Eyes, We Danced A Waltz
By Chronic Guardian
Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Seventh Soul, Week 12 – You're Still You/Reset
Philippa drinks her coffee Italian style: thick, dark, and strong. After nearly a month on the case, even that potent kick is wearing a hole in its previously pointed toe. The racket she's been hired to monitor is running upstate and down the river, but she still doesn't have enough evidence to reliably finger any key players and do more than make the rats scram for a season before they find another alley to scurry down.
At least she can put the coffee down as a work expense. She looks glumly down into the steam rising off her morning cup and tries to make out a reflection in its surface. She catches stray silhouettes of brown ringlets that she plans on stuffing up under a hat for most of the day and a face without details. She's ethnically Greek, but she passes for Italian in most neighborhoods. School kids used to tease her as coming from a family of dirty Catholics without realizing she was Eastern Orthodox. Eventually she learned to tell them off by threatening to sic her non-existent Italian cousins in the mob on them.
Funny that after all those phantom benefits she ended up shutting down those extra-legal operations as her job…
That's alright, though. She doesn't mind the irony so much. Her family has something of a history with the authorities. If they didn't she probably wouldn't make so much as secretary in the local borough office. They still don't like letting her out with the usual beat boys, but she at least gets to deal with investigations.
"Awake yet?" her boss asks. She glances up at him, a man with sweeping muttonchops meeting in brush curtains stiff enough to buff jewelry over his upper lip. His sharp green eyes, buried under his bushy eyebrows, glower back with an intensity that's often mistaken as intentional. "We got an assignment for you."
Philippa sticks on a wry smile and cradles her forehead as a stack of files finds a new home on her desk. "Field?" she asks.
"Sorta. Outta the office, at least."
"Swell. What's the gig?"
"Patriot Fundraiser Ball. Big wigs from all over the city."
"You want me to run a table?"
"We want you on the floor," her boss corrects, wriggling his mustache. "Word has it some boys in the Marchio di Fuoco racket are casin' the joint."
She raises her eyebrows and looks up. "They're robbing a charity event?"
"They're doin' somethin'. I want you there as backup."
"If you're hoping for some feminine wiles—"
"What, from you?" he dismissively buzzes his lips. "Puh-leaze. Lippa, my girl, if I wanted to go that angle I'd pull in a high-society hooker for the job. You got more poise than most of the boys, but you ain't exactly the picture of social grace. What I need from you is eyes on the ground that won't get the whole dance floor scrambling for a partner swap."
Philippa purses her mouth and waits for him to amend the unflattering implications baked into the statement. He almost looks like he's catching on for a second, but then he just nods and turns to go. "I can have the wife pick you out a dress if you need it," he says over his shoulder. "Eh, who am I kiddin', all you got are uniforms. Operation starts eight o'clock Saturday night. I want you home by two; no boys. Got it, Lippa?"
"Yeah, yeah... make sure to get it out of my system while I'm there," Philippa teases, sorting through the papers he has left her. "Got it, Chief."
"Yeesh, save some of that flirting for the real danger, huh, kid?"
She allows a tired smile he probably doesn't see and lifts out a photo from the case file. "I dunno, Boss. Special exception for this one?"
He glances back, rolls his eyes, and waves off the joke. "Leave the boy alone, Lippa. We'll have our hands on him soon enough."
"I thought we had a no dating policy for prisoners."
"And we got a similar policy for delinquents, so don't get ahead of yourself. If you wanna date then get off my force."
"Oh, well if that's the case..."
They share a chuckle. "We'll find you a nice Greek boy when you get back," he promises on his way out. "Just keep it professional until then."
"Mmm..." Philippa hums and tracks him all the way through the door before she looks back at the picture of a German mobster with a soft, sad face.
He doesn't look much older than her and yet somehow he's gotten himself mixed up deep in the Marchio's gun running. If it weren't for that strange coldness lurking in his eyes, she might even think him innocent. Perhaps it's just the angle, but there's something haunting in his over-the shoulder profile, glancing not quite far enough to see the police photographer tailing him.
Studying the features again, Philippa frowns and traces his cheek with her finger. She hesitates a lingering moment more, then flips the photo to check the ink scrawled caption.
Johan Brandt, "Aurolieus the Arsonist".
She slowly breathes in, flips the image back face up, and slides it into its original resting place. She will see him again soon enough. She can ask him about it then, why it turned out this way, why he's doing what he's doing.
Cradling her forehead with both hands, she leans her elbows on her desk and tries to absorb herself in her work. She can't ask him yet. Looking at the photo won't do anything. The most she can do is hold back the thought in her mind before it takes full hold. Johan has always had bad luck, it's not out of the question that he was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.
-:-
"You're not going?"
Johan Aurolieus Brandt doesn't look up from his engine schematics to address his lieutenant, a thin man in a well fitted, drab suit. "I wasn't raised as a socialite," he murmurs, drawing a few notes on a combustion mechanism. Ironic as the statement is for the son of the late industrialist Aurolieus Ellis Brandt, it rings true. "Send the market director."
"You'll have an alibi if you're out in the public eye."
"We both know I'll raise more suspicion fidgeting with my tie in a ballroom than hiding away doing God knows what in my lab. I might know how to dance, but there is no formula for small talk, Aldreich. With the influence those stuffed shirts wield, there's less danger hunting Marchio goons."
"Your father would disagree."
"My father played himself into a corner," Johan answers calmly. "I'm not looking to build back his legacy, I'm just hoping it lasts long enough to get back at Finsch."
"I can't commend that as healthy, sir."
"Don't worry, I'll make sure you get a clean severance package."
His lieutenant sighs. "The press is beginning to suspect you of the Teuton Street Fire."
"Of course they are; Finsch owns the press."
"Finsch doesn't own everything."
"You mean like the police?" Johan arches an eyebrow and browses a list of fuel distillation methods. "Sure, not directly, but all that side of society sees him as the hero. No one's looking to prosecute Finsch."
"Your father wouldn't—"
"My father absolutely would avenge himself. It's me he wouldn't bother about."
"...If I may sir?"
"If you must, Aldreich."
"You may be too quick to treat the situation as a machine."
The unintended heir of the Brandt family corporation sighs and spreads his arms. "Would you ask elsewise of a machinist?"
His lieutenant doesn't react. It's no one's fault in particular that he ended up this way. His father even allowed him to attend a school for a few years, an experience that largely hardened his heart to the rat racing masses. He wouldn't mind them so much if they weren't bent on dragging him into their petty squabbles and seeing how far they could push a rich man's son, but their games of dominance leaned more towards bullying than actual advancement.
It was all so stupid…
"To keep it to the point, sir," his lieutenant continues in a measured voice, drawing something out of his jacket to place it on the table, "you can't solve everything with schematics."
Realizing Aldreich won't relent until tended to, Johan sighs and reaches for the offering. It's a photograph of a Mediterranean girl with a ponytail of dark, coffee-brown curls just outside the borough's police department.
A chill tries to rise in his chest, but Johan crushes it with the cold assurance of statistical probability. "Who's this?" he asks in a neutral voice.
"Philippa Hatzi. Daughter of immigrants, attended Wakefield Elementary nineteen-oh-six through nineteen fourteen. Lost her parents to flu. She was a subsequent beneficiary of the school's dormitories, which your father donated to during your own tenure there."
"So?"
"She works for the investigations department now. You might be able to call in a favor."
Johan smiles and bobs his head with suppressed chuckle more recognizable as an aggressive sniff. The Lippa Hatzi he knew would more likely turn him in if it saved her own skin. She was a survivor, a pragmatist. In short: his kind of person.
If nothing else, Lippa of all people would understand why things had gone so sideways. The girl in the picture still has the same sharp, reproachfully inquisitive look that Lippa got whenever the world wasn't spinning quite on the axis she expected it to.
"Furthermore, sir, we have reason to believe she'll be investigating the Fundraiser Ball."
Johan leans back in his chair, cheek bulging with his tongue as he weighs the option. It's a fool's errand. His last few strikes against Finsch have been blind, ill advised, and relentlessly publicized in a negative light through whatever evidence the gentleman puppetmaster felt plausible. In all likelihood, the police suspect him just as much as the street gangs he's tapped as his long arms of justice.
But if it's Philippa Hatzi…
"...I'm not paying for parking," he says at last. "Circle around once you drop me off. I'll be in and out by the time you're back."
"Enough time for a dance?"
Johan looks back to the photo. "Make it time for two," he tells the man. "Might take me a while to reacquaint myself with the steps."
-:To Be Continued?:-
Author's Notes
Well, here we are, the last shot of my run in Twelve Shots of Summer: Seventh Soul. This one is a mobster AU of SoSaysL's fantastic original story: Death's Kiss. AKA: The Cursed Guy: A Novel. Yes, there's a heavy cultural bent to the characters portrayed here, but I wanted to do something vaguely tributary to her amazing skill in reweaving a classic. A rough draft route of the first section should be up for search on FictionPress, so feel free to check it out if you're interested in a snarky fantasy face-off between a weaponized magical prince and a self-righteous, reality bending arch-nemesis. Happy late birthday, L! Hope it was a good one.
Special thanks also go out to all the Twelve Shots of Summer folks, particularly EeveeGen9988 and Aviantei for finishing strong (and on time) this summer. PunkTrashNoiz and FullMetalPanic also get points for posting late in the season. You are all heroes in my eyes for carrying on.
Lastly, my great respect and thanks to you, my dear reader. Whether this is your first in my seven years of this challenge or your eighty fourth, I appreciate you and the time you've given me. May these stories, in some small way, bring you happiness.
Yours,
-CG
[08/29/2020]