In which Levi visits the underworld, insults a bartender, and practices poor parenting.
The wind whipped grit from the streets through the ragged hole in the window of the train. With tremendous effort, Levi suppressed a shudder and edged further away from the hole. The electric click-click of the tracks bored into his mind in the same way all repetitive noises did, but he managed to keep his jaw clenched at a level that would hopefully not result in a headache. He slumped in his seat and pulled the beanie further down on his head. He wondered what Erwin would think of him now. Part of the reason he wore what Erwin considered to be offensively expensive suits was to remove himself as far as possible from where he'd come. But even after all this time, he slipped into the part effortlessly, at least in costume. He was less sure of his ability to not sound like a stiff.
He observed the train compartment with a practiced languidness as the train lurched around an alarmingly sharp curve and clattered into the station. The only other people in the compartment were a gum-chewing teenager blaring pop from her headphones and a businessman wearing handmade Italian loafers. Levi scoffed in his throat. Good taste, but exceptionally poor choice of footwear for this part of town. Still, it never hurt to be too careful, and Levi edged a little further over til he took up the majority of the row. He was in no mood for small talk with strangers or risking hepatitis on the broken glass of the window. Raising his eyes to the map of the rail lines posted near the door, he mentally counted the number of stops left til the end of the line. What a stereotype, he thought.
He mentally recounted what he knew. He was only covering the Carolina case because it was the only one with a suspect, but there had been half a dozen other dismembered bodies found in the city over the past few months, and if he wasn't mistaken, the average time between bodies was dropping. Precipitously. Due to the widespread coverage in sordid papers—and the fact that the Carolina case was the first one—everyone assumed the others were a copycat and probably done by the same person. Levi wished he could be so ignorant.
The distance between stops got longer and longer. Levi had always thought this was a strategic city planning move—if you remove the methods by which people could move out of bad neighborhoods, you would never have to worry about the dreaded lower class moving into your pristine neighborhoods. If people felt like they were trapped, they would give up. And so it went. Levi did not burn with righteous anger, which, he contended, might be hypocritical of him, given his background. He was good at picking battles that he was likely to win, and he was somewhat likelier to take down the drug kings and pimps in the criminal underworld than dismantle capitalism.
The train lurched to a halt at the last stop and he rose, stomping down the steps of the station in shitty Chuck Taylors. He supposed he was lucky he looked like a perennial teenager; even if he ran into trouble, people seldom fucked with kids. He jammed his fists into the front pockets of his rattiest jeans and counted his steps. Pass two alleyways. Duck into the third on the left. Go into the passageway to the right of the second door, down the stairs, right at the landing. From there he made a complicated series of twists and turns until he found himself in mankind's stupidest invention: a literal criminal underground city.
To be fair, it wasn't intended to be that way. It was essentially a belowground replica of the city above in case of nuclear attack, bee apocalypse, the sun exploding, or whatever conscionable reason there could be for needing to evacuate an entire city underground. Eventually the economics of maintaining two cities because unfeasible, and it was abandoned, taken over by the lowest socioeconomic class imaginable, and the city officials nearly dislocated their shoulders patting themselves on the back for the brilliance of socially engineering an abandoned city to "contain" both crime as well as poor people—though, to much of the city, the two were the same.
First-time visitors to the underground city might be equal parts horrified and impressed. Certain people took a bizarre pride in what little they had and kept it looking as nice as possible. Despite what the newspapers would lead people to believe, it was not simply a den of iniquity—it was still a functional part of the city, albeit with significantly more illicit activity. People lived, people died. People made a living. One shop had inlaid glittering pieces of multicolored glass around the window in a nice touch of brightness in the subterranean murk. But no amount of cheap paint and scavenged niceness could erase the dilapidation of sagging eaves, barred windows, and the more-than-occasional child or drunk slumped in doorways. Gangs reigned through extortion, intimidation, and a burgeoning assassination trade, and prostitutes popped up on street corners like daisies.
But Levi had always been remarkably good at ignoring things like this.
He headed for the Tortured Rose, which was easily identifiable by the sign hanging from the tattered rafters of the awning—a hand-painted slab of wood with an unrealistically busty redheaded woman chained to the bowsprit of an old ship, tears running down her face. It was actually an impeccably well painted sign. Such a shame for it to be for such a trashy purpose. The already dim light of the underworld seemed like a supernova compared to the dungeonlike atmosphere of the bar. The humidity made Levi's hair stand up. The bar was only half full, and the bartender was sampling shots from a new crate of whiskey he was seemingly unpacking. He had an undercut even more severe (and in Levi's opinion, stupid-looking) than Levi's own, and the look on his horsey face could only be described as profound disinterest. "The fuck you want?" he called out.
Levi sneered. "Double whiskey on the rocks, horseman."
The bartender's eyebrows shot up for a millisecond, appraising Levi. He shrugged, wiped his hand on his shirt, and stuck it out. "Name's Auruo."
A voice in the back of Levi's mind screamed hysterically as he shook the stranger's grimy hand. With colossal effort he didn't shudder or immediately run to the bathroom, though he could feel his skin crawling. "Dean," he lied smoothly.
"You want home brew or top shelf?"
"Top shelf."
Auruo chucked. "Kid with class. I like that."
Levi grimaced internally. Then again, the bartender looked significantly older than Levi—maybe he was a kid by comparison.
"You new here?" Auruo asked, sliding the whiskey towards Levi. The tumbler was passably clean. Levi made a noncommittal hum that could mean anything. "I'm kind of new myself…came from Karanese because my brother said the money was good. He, uh, forgot to tell me that this is a den of thieves."
That would explain the excessive chattiness, Levi thought speculatively. Natural-bred residents of the underworld would never talk so freely to a stranger. This could only work out well for him. "It's not so bad," Levi murmured into his drink.
Auruo snorted. "I left the countryside for this."
Levi shrugged. "Yeah, but you can do whatever the hell you want and nobody'll care."
"Ah, that's just the sort of thing a kid would say," the bartender said, rubbing at the fuzz of his undercut.
I am thirty-four goddamn years old, Levi wanted to cry. He was just as sensitive about his real age as he was about not looking like it. It was a ridiculous catch-22 and he knew it. "Heard there's a killer upstairs," he remarked, tracing the edge of his glass with the tip of his finger. "Guess it's better to stay down here."
Auruo's eyes crinkled in thought, an activity that seemed like it might be dangerous for him. "I don't know anything about that…hey, Marco!" he roared suddenly. "Get out here!"
The sound of half a dozen boxes cascading to the floor preceded a lanky, freckled teenager with an apologetic smile that could have birthed angels. "Sorry, sir! I'm almost done in the back—"
"Tell this kid what you heard about the killer upstairs," Auruo cut in.
"Oh, that," the kid shuddered delicately. Levi watched him carefully. He could tell from the kid's mannerisms and accent that he came from aboveground—by the sounds of it, a rather nice neighborhood. He'd love to ask the kid why he'd voluntarily come down here to work. "They found another last week that they think is the same guy. Well—I hope it's a guy. Wouldn't it be awful if it were a girl? I'd hate to think a girl could do something so terrible."
Levi smiled darkly into the palm of his hand.
"Anyway, I heard one of my friends say this same sort of thing happened about ten years ago, bodies turning up in pieces in different places. The papers all called the killer The Ripper, but they never found him. Hey," Marco said, a worried look in his eyes. "You don't think it's the same person, do you?"
Levi shrugged. "Probably not." Of fucking course they're the same, you dolt. He was wasting his time. When dinosaurs still roamed the cooling earth, the Tortured Rose was the best place to find whatever a person needed, but he wasn't wasting the rest of his evening on a country rube bartender and fresh-faced box boy. Still— "My brother's looking for a guy named Hannes. You know him?"
Marco shook his head, but Auruo had a surprisingly contemplative look. "Hannes…Hannes the guy with the tattoo shop? Haven't seen him in a while, heard the shop closed because he hadn't shown up for work. You might wanna try swinging by there, though."
Good enough. Levi slapped five dollars on the bar. "Thanks." He hopped down from the stool and blended in with the darkness of the bar, slipping silently back into the street. He narrowly avoided a fresh puddle of vomit and glared reproachfully at the passed-out man lying precariously close to the puddle. Fucking drunks didn't even have the decency to puke in an alleyway anymore, apparently. He whipped the beanie off his head and scratched at his sweaty hair irritably. I bet a bottle of scotch that the bastard's already dead, he bet himself sardonically. A rustle from the alleyway startled him, and he spun, catching a pair of shiny eyes in the dim light. A kid watched him carefully. "Oi, kid," Levi said, with only half the normal level of irritation.
"I have a name," the boy said peevishly.
Levi rolled his eyes. "Whatever, fine. Can you tell me how to get someplace?"
"It's Sammy."
"Great, fine, and I'm the damn Easter Bunny." he snapped.
The kid's eyes widened comically. "Mom says you're not supposed to swear, it isn't nice."
"I'm not nice," he said emphatically. "Why the hell am I arguing with a five year old?"
"I'm six and a half!" Sammy stamped his foot. "Wait…" a lightbulb seemed to go off in his head. "You swore."
"Yeah," Levi deadpanned.
"And, like…you didn't get sent straight to you-know-where," the kid's voice dropped in an ominous whisper.
Levi snorted so hard it hurt. "That's what your mom told you? Listen, kid, nothing happens to you if you swear."
"Really?" The kid looked like he'd been handed an especially large Christmas present.
"Well, your mom might wash your mouth out with soap. So maybe don't do it in front of her. But no, a portal to hell isn't going to open up just because you swear." I am corrupting a small child. "Look, task at hand. Directions. I'll pay you."
"Ten dollars," Sammy said quickly, sticking out a grubby palm.
"Five, unless you're going to personally take me there, you brat."
Sammy bounced from foot to foot. "Mom says I'm not allowed out at night, there's bad stuff out there. I'm only out here to dump out the trash."
"Sounds like you'll be getting five dollars, then," Levi replied dryly. "Garrison Body Art."
"Right on Ripley, left on Bellinger, it has a big ugly sign, can't miss it. Five dollars, please," the brat said snarkily.
Levi glared at him and handed him the bill. The kid vanished faster than he would have thought possible. He felt like an idiot that it was only a handful of turns, but it wasn't as if he frequented the area often. He walked at a fast clip and ignored the mewling catcalls of pimps and prostitutes. Sure enough, the Garrison was shuttered, with KEEP OUT barely visible among all the graffiti on the plyboards. He slunk around to the back door and glanced at the lock. He wasn't sure if Hannes would even remember him, was even less sure if forcing the lock was worth it, but he hadn't come all the way down here to shoot the shit over terrible whiskey with two strangers. He sized up the lock and broke the fixture with a well-aimed kick.
The interior of the shop hadn't quite been ransacked, but Hannes had clearly left in a hurry. Levi waded through a catastrophe of paperwork and spilled ink. There wasn't a single surface in the room he trusted to sit on and he was pretty sure he wouldn't find what he needed in a hurry. He reached for the gloves in his back pocket. They weren't as thick or impenetrable as he'd like, but would do the job of preventing prints. Amazingly, the open register still had all its money, and Levi took about five seconds to think before pocketing it. He'd turn it into the police in the morning. Probably at least some of it was counterfeit, and he sure as hell didn't need it, but he wasn't going to leave it here to contribute to the illicit activities he diligently prosecuted during daylight hours. The shop would be easy pickings now that he'd ripped the lock off the door. He rummaged through a cubby, and through a mess of rolls of paper for the register and spare pens his fingertips found a ledger with a leather cover. The Hannes of his youth had been just this side of demented in his forgetfulness and once openly admitted to having written down every password and username he needed for absolutely everything in his life. Levi could only hope that the Hannes of the hopefully-not-terribly-distant past was the same.
Levi flipped through the ledger with sharp eyes. Its structure of inventory made it easier for anything odd to stick out. About a third of the way through the book, the clean lines of stock were broken up by a single sentence written in a cramped hand: 49 30 2 black tin. Fantastic. A damn scavenger hunt, he thought irritably. He looked around the room for a place where one might keep a safe and desperately hoped it wasn't in the clichéd niche behind a painting.
It was.
Rather, it was actually a small lockbox behind an appallingly tacky painted wooden scroll of a half-naked Asian girl. He spun the dial and pried open the lid, finding a bag of what was probably cocaine, an old breath mint tin, and a faded picture of a smiling woman in a floral dress standing outside a lighthouse. What the fuck, Hannes. He opened the tin, hoping it contained whatever it was he thought he was looking for. It had a spare key that Levi assumed went to the locked drawer to the left of the register. Levi really had no clear objective when he came in here, but he was beginning to think he wouldn't mind finding the lost treasure of Shangri-La for his troubles. The locked drawer had a scrap of paper covered in a language Levi couldn't read, but he was pretty sure it was incomplete. It had been hastily torn out of a notebook and was covered in blots and gouges—clearly whoever had written it had been horribly anxious. He squinted at it and moved it alternately closer and further away from his eyes until he could focus adequately. The Petra of his conscience fussed at him. Telescoping the scrap of paper made it no more intelligible than it had been, but he stuck it in his wallet anyway.
It was better than nothing, after all.
Literally I do not know if this is good anymore or if life is even real because it's 5:30 in the morning, but thank you for all the hits/faves/follows, y'all are a gift xoxo