: HOUSE OF CARDS :
PART TWO : CAPTIVITY
(7) - Gambit -
Spring 2009
"But no, I won't go for any of those things,
To not touch your skin is not why I sing,
I can't help myself,
I've got to see you again…"
There was the slightest curve of a smile on Remy's lips as he half walked, half skipped down the sidewalk and threw a ten-dollar bill into the beatnik hat of the pretty busker playing guitar on the street corner. The girl stared and blushed when he winked at her, her song faltering mid-sentence and making a few of the audience laugh at her apparent bemusement.
He liked her. He liked her song and he liked her voice. He hoped she'd remember him for more than just the ten-dollar bill.
He let his eyes linger on her for just a moment longer before he sprinted across the street and navigated the traffic with an utterly unexpected elegance that left the pretty busker quite breathless.
It was late afternoon and the shadows were starting to fall heavily on the small ammunitions store that was sandwiched gracelessly between the rundown bar and the boarded up grocery store, which had been boarded up ever since the murder of some good-for-nothing mutie the summer previous. Remy stepped up towards the ammo store with the same jauntiness of step that he'd walked down the sidewalk and across the street. He pushed open the rickety old door, rang the same old bell and walked up to the same old counter past the usual dull and dusty old shelves.
It was the usual femme who stood behind the counter, polishing the usual .22 Smith and Wesson with the same self-possessed expression on her face.
As far as he was concerned, she was the only thing Murray's Guns had going for it.
He approached the counter with the same roguish smile that he always greeted her with and said: "Hey Rita. Still not broken into de film industry yet, I see."
The woman put down the cloth and the Smith and Wesson with a haughty eyebrow raised on her pretty face.
"Yet again you prove to me that you never listen to a word I say when we're together. It isn't the film industry I'm trying to break into. I wanna be a stuntwoman."
"Well I can't help it if I find myself more interested in de other t'ings you've got on offer here," he quipped meaningfully. "But I will say dat I have first-hand knowledge of just how athletic you really are, chere, and so I can most definitely say dat de stunt industry is doin' itself a disservice in not hirin' you."
The woman narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion and placed a hand on a well-rounded hip.
"Keep the compliments comin', Remy. You're gonna need a helluva lot of them. I ain't seen you in months! Where have you been? Or should I say, who have you been with?"
He grinned. He didn't believe for a moment that she actually gave a shit.
"Chere, surely you should know by now dat I only have eyes for you," he drawled, propping his elbows on the counter and gazing at her seductively over the top of his shades, to which she merely rolled her eyes.
"It's not like I care or anything, LeBeau," she informed him hotly. "You just never paid Murray for those blades you bought last summer, and he's pissed at you. I mean really pissed at you."
"He wants money?" Remy replied casually and dipped a hand into his trenchcoat pocket. "Fine." He pulled out a whole wad of bills and slapped it on the counter in front of her. She stared at it a moment, gave him a look and said: "Been moonlighting again, I see."
"De best jobs always come by night," he said, removing his shades and winking at her, which she ignored as she proceeded to count out the money he owed with a fastidiousness he always found amusing.
Ricochet Rita, as she was known by all and sundry due to her amazing athleticism (of which Remy could attest to with firsthand knowledge), was a pretty woman of about twenty-seven years of age - not pretty in the conventional sense of the word, but rather unusual in her looks, with long, silky, bone straight, jet black hair, pale blue eyes, white, freckled skin and a wide, sensuous mouth. She was sassy, she was larger than life, she was free-spirited. She had no illusions about life and made sure you had no illusions about who she was and what she wanted. She was passionate and headstrong and sometimes shockingly amoral.
She was, of course, a baseline human, but she had no qualms about associating with mutants. The only people she held in disdain were stupid, ignorant people, and she often said so. The shop she owned with her on-off husband/partner/arch nemesis, Murray, welcomed mutants just as it welcomed statics - so long as they had the cash to pay for their receipts, of course.
There were a lot of reasons why Remy liked her. These were just a few of them.
"So," Rita began when she had finished counting out the exact amount of money owed, had opened the cashier desk, neatly arranged the dollar bills inside, and handed him his change, "what brings you here then, LeBeau? I was beginning to think you'd never show up again."
"Admit it, you missed me," he cooed.
"Don't flatter yourself," she shot back just as fast, and he raised his hands in self-defence.
"Actually, I came to get the usual," he replied nonchalantly.
"Half a dozen of our finest blades, huh?" She bent down under the desk and the next moment had popped up again and slapped a squat parcel onto the counter in a cloud of dust. "Murray figured when you came back you'd be wanting some. He even packed 'em away for you, all nice and neat and tidy. Bit dusty now though, as you can see," she added dryly. "Say what you will about the man, but he's organised, and he's reliable, unlike some I could care to mention."
"You ain't gon' let dis lie, are you?" Remy sighed dramatically, counting out dollar bills again and handing them to her, which she immediately pocketed.
"Not on principle, no," she retorted pointedly. "Don't misunderstand me, Rems. I don't really care what you get up to in your 'leisure' time, but I don't care for bein' stood up."
"Aw, chere, you know how it is wit' business. Sometimes it gets in de way…" He took the parcel and stuffed it inside his duster.
"Fun and games is one thing, and believe it or not, I could do without them," she told him flippantly. "But wining and dining is an entirely different matter. Do you know how hard it is to get Murray to even entertain the idea of taking me out to dinner?" She sighed. "He hasn't taken me out on a date in four years - stupid fat oaf," she added with a helpless affection that she couldn't quite hide.
It was moments like these when Remy could see that she really did love her husband - though he never understood why, since Murray was everything Remy was not in the sex appeal stakes - stout, sallow, wheezy, and with a rather prominent beer gut.
"So where is he anyway?" he asked, glancing about the otherwise empty store.
"Out of state. Picking up some rare supplies. Probably those knives you keep doing us out of." Her smile was wry.
"You miss him."
"Hmph. God knows why, but I do. He's a bumbling ignoramus, and you know I hate anyone who's a bumbling ignoramus, but then, Murray's not like most bumbling ignoramuses, and most ignoramuses are most definitely not like Murray."
"Oh." He twitched an eyebrow petulantly. "So you miss de bumblin' ignoramus but you don't miss me. Chere, you are breakin' mon coeur."
Her expression was sarcastic. "Remy, you have no heart. But yeah, I miss you. Not the way I miss Murray - but then, it's not the same kind of things I miss."
He leaned against the counter again, grinned his most charming grin. "Lemme guess. You miss him for all de fights and de cuddles and de holdin' hands and shit. And you miss me for de cheap thrills dat keep you goin' in de meantime."
She gave him something between a pout and a scowl.
"Sex ain't everything, you might be surprised to hear."
"Yeah, but it's a lot of t'ings to a lot of people, especially when dey're lonely. Dat's why you miss me when I'm gone."
He wasn't smiling now. Something had occurred to him, and it had been the first time it had occurred to him in months. He pushed himself off the counter, feeling their flirtation had lost its lustre.
"I'll see y' around, Rita. Send my regards to Murray, when you see him - not dat he'll care for them either way."
He turned to go, but before he could slip his shades back on she'd stopped him.
"Remy?"
He halted, turned. She looked a little sheepish underneath all the brass.
"I'm free tonight, if you're up for some light entertainment."
He reached for the placard on the door, swivelled it round to 'CLOSED'.
"I'm free now," he said.
-oOo-
Remy always came back to Rita for two reasons: first because he liked her, and second for the sex. The sex was passionate yet meaningless and thus safe. The fact that he liked her meant that he could come back as much as he wanted without fearing that he would fall in-love with her; he also half suspected that he liked her because she was in-love with Murray, which meant that she would never fall in-love with him.
It wasn't quite a marriage of convenience - it was far too complex for that.
It was a connection based on need, and one that happened to be very convenient indeed.
That night the act had been totally perfunctory and without any unnecessary strings attached - it was always this way. Afterwards Rita lay and stared up at the ceiling, running her fingers through her long black hair, while he sat and smoked a cigarette. She was always very quiet - he wondered whether her heart panged because she cheated on her man in their marital bed. He figured that someone should be feeling guilty, because he sure as hell wasn't.
Presently she sat up too and he lit a cigarette for her because he liked her, and because he was a fair man and he liked to show his gratitude.
They sat and smoked for a while saying nothing. He admired her insouciance; he admired the way her dark hair played upon her white skin. He admired a great many things about her but for totally selfish reasons because they made him feel good about the fact that he was having an affair with a married woman.
Tonight none of this really mattered, because his heart hadn't really been in it, and frankly he could've done without the excursion, if it wasn't now something of a habit. Something he'd said earlier on had made him pensive and thoughtful, which was never good for anyone's sex life.
Sex is a lot of things to a lot of people, especially when they're lonely.
Oh God, he was going through one of those maudlin, philosophical phases again. He knew he shouldn't have listened to the song that pretty busker had been singing, even though he'd been under the impression that all he'd been doing at the time was flirting with her.
Merde.
It had taken him six months to work it out. Six months for him to work out that every day of those six months his mind had been on someone else, and that he'd fucked Rita today out of pure frustration because he really wanted to fuck that someone else. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. He felt as if his own brain had outmanoeuvred him and called 'checkmate!'
"Murray," he suddenly said, because he didn't really want to think and saying pointless things was infinitely preferable. "D'you know when he's comin' back?"
Rita stretched, luxuriant, cat-like.
"He said he'd call on his way back."
He decided he'd talk some more, since it was doing the job of making his mind not think.
"Would it bother you?" he asked. "If he came back and found us here like dis?"
She pressed the cigarette to her lips and sucked. He liked the way she did that too.
"If he'd rung before you showed up, I wouldn't have closed up shop just for your benefit," she answered, blowing a perfectly-formed ring of smoke and watching it travel a few inches before fading. "Does that answer your question?"
He shrugged.
"Murray's a good guy," he remarked unnecessarily. "And I don't like doin' good guys out of anyt'ing. But I like you. And I like bein' wit' you." He pulled aside the covers and slid out of bed, ignoring her curious look. Outside the window darkness had fallen, purply and indigo, over the courtyard below. Electric lamps buzzed implacably, spilling their sickly yellow light into Rita's little bedroom. Remy leaned against the window frame, slid the pane open with one hand and looked out. The sky was starless, the little square below soulless. For a long while he stood there and said nothing.
"Something tells me you're a little distracted tonight, Remy," Rita's voice came from behind him, low, conversational. He grunted, non-committal, and tapped ash out of the window.
"Anything you care to talk about?" she asked. He half-laughed.
"Not really," he said.
"Bullshit," she replied a little begrudgingly. "You've been distracted ever since we got here." She paused, and then said in an irritated tone: "So come on - who is she?"
Another thing about Rita was that she was never jealous. That was probably what he liked about her the most. He stared at some indeterminable point in mid-air and pulled on his cigarette, before letting out a long, lingering breath. It was no good. Talking wasn't going to stop him from thinking about her, so he might as well talk about her anyway.
"Slim, about five-eight. Brunette. Green eyes. Twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. Mile long legs and de softest skin you'll ever touch. Lips like dynamite."
Behind him Rita leaned over towards the nightstand and flicked ash into an ashtray, her expression nonchalant.
"What's her name?" she asked.
He stared at that same indeterminable space for a moment.
"…I dunno…" he finally murmured.
Rita pursed her lips and stared at the blue and white pattern on the bedspread in front of her, which had always seemed to her to hold the quality of cheap, mass-produced china.
"You known her long?" she probed at last.
"Yeah. Four years, maybe," he answered. She whistled.
"You never told me you were in a long-term relationship, LeBeau."
He gave a mirthless laugh. "I'm not." He paused, shifted slightly, turning his back fully on her. Standing there naked in the reflected lights of the street lamps, it struck her how perfectly beautiful he really was. It was a beauty that made him wonderful to look at and wonderful to make love to, but there was always a coldness about him, a sense of to have and not to hold, and as she looked at him standing there it also struck her how incredibly lonely he seemed.
"Then -?" she said, but he answered her before she could even get the question out.
"Hadn't seen her for years, I thought she was dead. Then suddenly, last fall, dere she was. Like I wanted her so bad I made her real again." He tilted his head, as if musing to himself. "I guess I had to touch her, just t' make sure she was real. And she was. She was real. And you know me. Once I touch somet'ing I gotta steal it. I gotta have it."
Rita simply smiled and stared at the smoke rising out of her cigarette.
"It was de first time I made love to her," he continued in a husky undertone. "Spent years tryin' t' chase her down and den it finally happens… Now of all times, in dis godforsaken, fucked up excuse for a world. Dieu, it was so perfect…"
He looked out again; the moon was invisible, wherever it was. Rita still had the half-smile on her face. For the first time she really felt like she was touching the man named Remy LeBeau.
"And where is she now?" she asked quietly.
He shrugged, scratched his left arm, took a drag.
"I don't know. She's in de business - she could be anywhere, doin' anyt'ing."
"And that's why you're here with me?" she probed lightly, tapping the cigarette over the ashtray with a small frown on her face. "Instead of with her? 'Cos she's in 'the business', and relationships are outside of 'the business'?"
"Relationships?" He laughed coldly. "It ain't got not'ing t' do wit' relationships. You and me, we have a relationship, Rita - it's strictly business, but it's fine."
"So what's not fine?" she inquired testily.
He shrugged, before saying decidedly: "Attachment. Attachment's not fine."
"Bullshit." For the first time she sounded angry.
"What?"
"You. You and your arrogant, machismo bullshit." She swivelled onto her side and propped her head into a palm. "This whole business thing is bullshit. It's just an excuse. Something to make you feel better because you're pathetic and alone." Her frown deepened; now she was in free flow and anything he said would not stop her. "You need me 'cos you're lonely, and I need you 'cos I'm lonely. Hell, I think you're sexy, and you have a crazy sense of style and you fuck real good, but I'd drop you in a minute if the man I loved didn't leave me mind-numbingly, soul-destroyingly lonely." She halted, checking her temper as she always did because her temper never exceeded a certain degree of Fahrenheit and she was determined to keep it that way. "Yeah, I'd kick you to the kerb in a second if, just for once, Murray decided I actually existed. But who takes me out to dinner, who buys me drinks and romances me, who takes the time to kiss me before we fuck? You."
"Which is why you keep me around, huh?" he interjected bitterly.
"Quid pro quo, LeBeau. I take the time to make you feel good about yourself too, right?"
"Yeah, you're just doin' wonders for my ego right about now," he returned sardonically. "What's your point?"
"My point is, I love Murray and I wouldn't throw the fool away, even for a smooth-talkin' Cajun Casanova such as yourself."
"Good for you," he muttered caustically. He suddenly decided it had been a mistake to talk about her. Rita never got jealous but she could be incredibly preachy once you got her onto a certain subject that had she happened to have a bee in her bonnet about.
"Love," she said suddenly, as if it should mean something to him.
"Huh?"
"You said 'made love to her'. That's a bigger give-away than if you'd said 'I'm crazy about this girl and want to spend the rest of my life with her'."
He frowned and flicked his cigarette out the window, not saying anything, not liking what he was hearing one iota. Moreover he disagreed with it wholeheartedly, but only because it made perfect sense.
"So why don't you go find her?" she concluded when he made no reply.
He leant against the windowsill and closed his eyes. Why not find her…? Because it was foolhardy, because it disobeyed all the rules, because he would end up getting bored and hurting her anyway. Sometimes it was infuriating how simple things seemed to be to Rita. To her, there really was only just loving and fucking and very little else in-between. And for some reason, that single one-night stand with the green-eyed brunette had encompassed that grey area of something 'in-between'. Still, why not find her? All he wanted was another glimpse, another touch, another kiss, another night…
He turned and moved across the room with sudden purpose, finding his clothes still strewn haphazardly across the floor and pulling them on.
"Where're you going?" she asked; her voice was once again artfully nonchalant.
"Got a job t'night," he explained, slipping into his pants and zipping them up. "T'anks for de goods, chere. Looks like I'll probably be needin' dem."
She watched him for a while, the words formulating in her head, fighting for articulation so that it took a while for her to finally spit out: "Remy… You're not mad at me, are you?"
"Non." He pulled his shirt back on and reached for his trench coat. "It's just dat you're always so right, p'tite, and sometimes a man can find dat a little intimidatin'."
She was half-lying, half-sitting on her back now, gazing at him from under her eyelashes; a sexy, husky chuckle bubbled up in her throat.
"You'll be back," she said indulgently. "Whether you find your pretty brunette or not."
"Don't you and I both know it," he murmured, shrugging his coat over his shoulders. He stood there and looked at her. "I guess I'll see you around then, Rita."
"Yeah, I'll see you around." She waved a hand at him as if to say 'be off with you' and smiled. "If you ever get lonely again, you know where to find me."
"And if you ever get into de stunt business, don't forget t' leave me a forwardin' address," he reminded her. It was what he always reminded her, because he really meant it.
"Hmph. Next time you come round, I'll be here." She sighed and rolled over, snuggling down under the covers as if it were her grave. "I'll always be here," she added as a sober and somehow apt afterthought.
-oOo-
There were very few things that Remy LeBeau took the time to feel guilty about. Guilt and shame were just about as dangerous as love and attachment in his line of business; it was in his best interests to be as dispassionate and amoral as he could be. Many men who worked in the business gave vent to an inevitable guilt overload by turning hard and cold, or psychotic and insane. Others went home and devoted their lives to their families, or their cars, or tending to their back yards and winning awards for them once a year.
There were three things that kept Remy going whenever he had particular trouble keeping his guilt in check: thievery, gambling, and sex with pretty women. While on the job he was nothing but calm, focused, impassive and utterly professional. Off it he was charming, seductive, glib and passionate. He was a strange dichotomy of personalities that may have surprised some and worried others. It wasn't the way he was born, it was just the way he'd learnt to survive.
At this particular moment in time he'd taken care to switch off the emotional, guilt-ridden part of his personality and turn on the cold, analytical part.
He was lying flat on his stomach inside a cramped little air vent, staring down through the grille at two nameless and faceless security guards with one of Rita's knives poised very deliberately in his hand. He was having a hard time concentrating on the job at hand because the conversation he'd had with Rita that evening was still very firmly on his mind. Along with the green-eyed brunette he'd managed to seduce a whole six months before, and who he'd conveniently managed to ignore until nine a.m. that morning when he'd woken up and inexplicably decided he wanted to see her again. He didn't particularly mind Rita being astute - he appreciated the fact that she was clever as well as easy on the eyes - but he did mind it when she was astute about things he was trying to keep to, or rather from, himself.
Besides, Rogue had been a mistake.
A very nice mistake, but one he could definitely do with less of.
He decided to give up concentrating, trust his instincts, and just throw the goddamn knife.
It buried itself in the back of the neck of the first guard, who toppled to the floor as if his legs had unaccountably given way. The second security guard stared down at his fallen comrade in confusion.
"What the f-"
But of course, before he'd had the opportunity to finish what he was saying, he too had crumpled on the floor with a knife stuck unceremoniously in the back of his head.
Remy unscrewed the grille and jumped out of the air vent with an expression of relief.
The annoying thing was, he hadn't thought of her in years. Well, not that much anyway. He'd thought she was dead. He didn't know why he thought this, when she could just as easily have been incarcerated along with the other surviving X-Men in an internment camp. It was easier to think she was dead; it didn't make him want to go and play the knight-in-shining-armour to her damsel-in-distress. So it had been something of a shock to see her in that Sentinel parts factory.
He'd been lying around, minding his own business in an air vent much like the one he'd just jumped from, when she'd walked by right below him. She'd been dressed in one of those hideous yellow boiler suits all the Trask Technologies maintenance men wore, but he'd recognised her straight away. The small, upturned nose, the sultry, slightly petulant mouth, the high cheekbones and the eyebrows that always seemed to come together in that defensive frown she'd always bestowed on him. And the eyes. He'd never forget those smoky green eyes, not ever.
He picked his way past the guards, thinking that the night security really was pretty abysmal in this place. He located the door control panel in a niche in a nearby wall and tapped a few buttons. The doors the guards had been guarding gave a resounding thunk and began to slide open. Yup, security here was really very lax. Lucky him.
He hadn't meant to follow her, but he had because he had been curious as to why she was blowing up factories in the first place. And he hadn't meant to take her back to his place, but he hadn't been able to help himself because when she'd turned those smoky green eyes on him he'd felt the same kind of electricity he'd felt the first moment they'd laid eyes on each other all those years before, and it was the kind of electricity that didn't go with rational thought.
By the time they'd arrived at the safe house, he'd known he was going to have sex with her. Still, he really hadn't meant to take her virginity; it was just that when he'd found out she still had it he'd been too selfish and horny to stop, because she was a hundred times more beautiful and more heartbreaking than he'd ever remembered, and he wanted her so bad he knew it was going to kill him if he didn't have her.
This was one of the very few things Remy felt guilty about.
He felt guilty about it because even though she had been inexperienced, somehow she'd made it incredibly good for him and he'd made it incredibly good for her and consequently the whole thing had been so incredibly good that he knew that one of them had been investing too much into it, and he didn't think it had been him.
He halted in the middle of the corridor, feeling stupid when he saw the rows of eyes staring at him from out of the bars running along either side of it. He started walking again, the absent look still on his face.
Merde. I t'ink it was de both of us.
He'd made a mistake that morning. He should've left as soon as he was ready. Instead he'd hung around, waiting for her to wake up for some reason he couldn't identify. Maybe he'd wanted to gauge her reaction, see how well she'd take it. But on the other hand, what did he care? He'd never cared about what any other woman thought, come the morning after.
Still, she'd taken it pretty well, he thought. She hadn't wept, she hadn't wailed, she hadn't gone into self-denial and begged him to stay. It didn't change the fact that he'd been stupid in waiting around for her to wake up, because she was as beautiful in the morning as she was by night, and he'd begun to think that he was the one being seduced.
He got to the end of the corridor, found another control panel and absent-mindedly circumvented its security interface.
Still, she'd taken it incredibly well, he thought.
There was a clanking whooshing sound as forty metal-barred doors slid open behind him. The rustling of uncertain feet as forty mutant prisoners grappled with the fact that they were free. He knew how they felt. Sometimes, it was easier to be in prison than to be free and to have to make decisions. He himself - he didn't care where they chose to go now, nor how they chose to get out. They were free now, he was no longer responsible for them - he had no intention of turning himself into their saviour as well as their rescuer. Besides, there was only one of them he was interested in.
The woman inside cell no. 21 was gaunter than he had ever remembered her in pleasanter days, not that any encounter with her previously had been pleasant. The finely sculpted face was now pale and sallow; what colour had been left in her cheeks was leeched away by the impossibly black hair on her head. Her countenance was haughty, imperious, yet there was a fear in her blue eyes that had never been there before.
Remy leaned against the wall and stared at her.
"Tessa, I presume?" he greeted her. She made no effort to speak. There was no love lost between them, and besides, he fancied she wasn't going to waste any brainpower speaking to him. A thousand computations a second were probably going through her once-pretty head as she sat there and stared at him, trying to work out why exactly he was here.
"I got a surprise for you, chere," he informed her with the air of a game-show host. "You're de lucky mutant who gets escorted out of dis joint by yours truly." He unpicked the shackles from her wrists and added wryly: "Congratulations."
-oOo-
It was the following evening and his head still hurt from where Tessa had promptly whacked him round the side of the skull with her boot heel once she'd finally figured out what he was up to.
He'd always known the job with Tessa wasn't going to be an easy one - she was a human-computer after all - but he hadn't been prepared for just how nimble she was when she was in full martial arts flow, even considering the fact that the internment camp hadn't given her the chance to practice her martial arts talents in years. It'd taken all his skill just to dodge her moves, and in the end he'd ended up having to half kill her in order to get her to come along quietly.
Needless to say, the boss had been far from happy.
Remy didn't care. He preferred it if he could rile his employer in some way - at least then it would stop him from feeling so guilty about what it was he actually did.
He got out of bed, slipped on his boxers and reached for the packet of Tylenol still lying on the dresser, swallowing a couple of the pills whole. In the shower the pretty busker was humming the same tune she'd been singing on the street the day before, and it reminded him of what he'd actually been meaning to do since he'd woken up that morning with a horrible headache and the need to get himself laid as fast as humanly possible.
His cell phone was still in his trench coat pocket and he fished it out, dialling the same number he used when he wanted particular info on a particular person. There were several rings before the call was answered by a cheap and cheerful male voice.
"Yo, Remy. Was expectin' your call last night."
"I had a delivery to make," Remy replied vaguely, picking up the remote control and turning on the TV, making sure that the volume was unnecessarily loud. "Thanks for de info, by de way."
"So how did it go? Didn't I tell you the security there was joke?"
"Damn straight it was. I dunno how dat Tessa didn't break outta dere all by her clever little self ages ago." He nursed his aching head and winced painfully.
"Hell, there ain't nobody can fathom that lady. She probably liked it in there. Probably gave her time and space and quiet to think."
Remy threw himself back on the bed and laughed. "Probably."
"So what's up? You got a new job lined up? Want me to lend yah my considerable brain?"
"Well, dis is kind of a side project I'm workin' on right now," Remy replied evasively. "In other words, low priority. Just somethin' for you t' occupy your expansive mind wit' durin' your leisure time, homme."
"A side-project, hmm? Nothin' involvin' blowin' up factories again, I hope. 'Cos man, I was expecting something better from you the last time you blew one up."
"Dat wasn't me. And technically, no it doesn't have anythin' to do wit' blowin' up factories."
"So what?"
Remy paused. The shower was still on, and the busker was still singing that same song. His heart gave an involuntary pang.
"I need you t' find someone for me."
"It's what I do, man. Who?"
"A girl. She's in de business. Five foot eight, about twenty-four, green eyes, long hair - brunette wit' a white streak. Slim, kinda sassy."
"Hmm. She sounds cute."
"She is."
"Got a name?"
"Nope." He was reluctant even to give her codename, just in case it got her into trouble at some point in the future. "Just de stats."
"Well, it ain't that much to go by…"
"I don't mind. Like I say, dis a side project, and I ain't in any hurry t' see it done. Just if you see her, let me know where she is. Don't wanna know what she's doin', who she's workin' for or who she's hangin' wit'. Just tell me where she is and how she's doin'. Dat's all."
"Okay, I'll look into it. Are you sure that's all you want to know?"
"Very sure. You can find out all you want about her if'n it floats your boat, but don't tell me, okay? Just call me if you see her."
"Dude, you just get weirder and weirder. But since it's you, I'll do it. Just don't expect a call any time soon with the specs you've given me."
"D'accord." The shower stopped. "Look, I gotta go. I'll call you back when de boss gives me somet'ing big. See ya."
He ended the call before anymore could be said.
As it turned out, the call he'd been hoping for came in June.
-oOo-
-END OF PART TWO-
A/N: Song lyrics from "I've Got To See You Again" by Norah Jones. i.e. not mine!