InsaneJournal

DAVIS: She sounded like a classy lady on the journals, but Davis wasn't a classy man. He looked upon it as something of a business meeting, a mutual place and time to discuss a murderer. (That wasn't as strange to Davis as it would have been to the average joe.) He was trim and comfortable in an unassuming red shirt and khaki slacks that were cool in the Vegas heat. He moved like a native, ignoring the MGM's silly extravagances and flashing lights, navigating the maze of gaming tables and following a carpeted trail through the slot machines toward the more modest of the MGM's slapdash slew of multicolored bars. His stride was confident even if he didn't know precisely what he was getting into; Davis was from Chicago and crowds were his element.

He paused next to the sign offering a menu of appetizers in curled letters, patiently settling his weight evenly on his heels to wait.

LIVIA: Livia did not do business meetings. Sophie Cartier, the part of Livia that was all straight-laced novelist, did business meetings, in prim suits and pumps, with her hair tied neatly back. But Livia Ibanescu was a night-time woman: she dressed for the evening, in slick, short dresses and high heels, her hair loose and her face colored. She was exotic, sensual, and ageless--altogether not the kind of woman you'd expect to meet with a balding landlord in a red shirt and khakis.

When she walked, people looked. Entering the bar was an exercise is being the center of attention: heads turned, and Livia smiled. She was an arrogant sort of woman, in a quiet sort of way. She was not depending on the horror-sense (not that it would have worked) when she ignored the gentleman at the bar who sidled up to offer her a drink; no, she was focusing on the man who did not look quite like he belonged where he was, the lonely, tired man who drank some, did not have sex, and wrote little.

"Mr. Bruin," she said, sliding up next to him, nearly his height in her stilettos. The bartender materialized for drink orders, and she sent him off with two glasses of scotch. "I am presuming correctly?"

DAVIS: Davis didn't have much height, nor any hair to disappear his eyebrows up into as they climbed up his forehead. Livia wasn't just classy, she was a knockout. Every move she made screamed beauty, sex and danger, and he admired her without making it a show. Damn, that was a woman. Half the men in the room were wondering how the stock market had made him that lucky, and Davis felt understandably smug for about a tenth of a second before his better sense took over.

Davis had a lot of sense.

"You are." He put his hand out in a distinctly American male way, but it was a courtesy, not an insult. "Its nice to meet you, Miss...?"

LIVIA: "Livia," Livia said, and extended a slim, long-fingered hand. Her handshake was surprisingly firm for a woman who looked ready for a night on the town. Somewhere in there was a heartless murderer, after all, however watered down by centuries he was. You didn't rule a kingdom with a weak handshake. "I am sorry to have to kept you waiting." The bartender appeared with two tumblers of amber liquid, and from somewhere on her person--for she wasn't carrying a purse--Livia materialized a credit card. "Come. Let us sit. It is not rakiya and bread, but--it will have to do." Gesturing towards a set of plush chairs near the back of the room, Livia turned to let Davis lead. She was very conscious of the looks around them, after all; might as well let him milk it while he could.

DAVIS: He looked in her eyes, and saw a few things he recognized along with the beauty and the danger. Davis would be the first to admit he didn't see everything, because part of being a cop was accepting the fact that you were human. (Or, in Davis' case, just unable to be everywhere and do everything.) Davis put his hand on her credit card and pushed it back toward her, leaving cash plus tip on the bar instead. The lady doesn't buy. "Not at all. Haven't been here a minute." You can hear the Chicago in his voice: it's gruff and airy, like the cold winds there.

He chooses a set of chairs with a view of the room and nothing but a wall behind them. Stepping around, he put his hand on one high back in a gesture of courtesy for her, though she didn't need it held and there was no table to push it into. He sat after she did, comfortable still with his glass. Very little unnerved Davis Bruin.

LIVIA: Very gentlemanly. Points to you, Mr. Bruin. Livia sat in a practiced way, one leg coming up over the other in a manner that knew people were watching. That was something you learned about Livia: people were always watching, and she always knew.

She took a sip of scotch, leaning the glass against her cheek. "So tell me. What are your plans?"

DAVIS: Davis sat. He leaned back, pulled one heel back toward his chair and stretched the other forward. He considered his glass and his problem for a moment, then said, "Neutralize Stoughton. How is a problem."

LIVIA: "Interesting choice of your words," she said, taking another small sip and setting the glass down. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. "You do not say eliminate."

DAVIS: He painted her with empty cop eyes. "I'm a cop, Miss Livia. We don't eliminate people just because they're the scum of the earth."

LIVIA: She returned the stare with one of her own--but full, brimming with something like life, but darker, more sinister. If Davis looked closely, he could see some of her history there--both Dracula's, and Livia's own. "And I am not a cop, Mr. Bruin. We do not have such rules to live by." And then her eyes were normal again, and she was leaning back in her chair. "And please--it is just Livia. Miss makes me sound like--what do you call them? School marms?" Her mouth wrapped around the word strangely, and if her accent wasn't a dead giveway, it was suddenly very apparent just how foreign Livia was.

DAVIS: "Most people don't," he said. "Unless you count the law." Many people did not live by the law, and that's why Davis had a job to do, back in Chicago. Hell, that's why he had a job to do here; he just didn't get paid for it. Davis smiled, and his eyes were not quite so empty. Of what he saw in Livia's eyes, he didn't comment. His nodded agreement, thoughtful, bemused. To him, 'miss' simply sounded polite, and possibly young. Either way, as long as she wasn't looking at him in that way she just looked at him, it suited. He'd probably forget at least twice before the night was through.

LIVIA: This was one of those moments she would light up, take her time with the cigarette, blow a line of smoke out the side of her mouth. But Livia always forgot which bars allowed smoking in this country and which didn't, so she settled for reclining in her chair and finishing off her scotch. "You know, then, why I have asked you here."

DAVIS: "I thought I did," he admitted, still smiling vaguely. "I'm sure it's not hard to find someone to share a drink with." Davis looked past her around the room, and his meaning was unmistakable. So was the compliment.

LIVIA: She smiled, cool but not without appreciation. Who was she to ignore a compliment? "No, it is not." She tapped a nail against the empty glass, and regarding Davis, then the room for a moment, before rising elegantly. "But I am not always looking for--a drink."

Take that as you would, Davis. She gestured towards his glass. "I will refill this, and you will consider my--proposition regarding our mutual friend." Her eyebrow went up slightly. "If I have been unclear, please do say so."

DAVIS: Davis said, "Please sit down, just a moment. I want to explain something." He put his glass down (empty) and sat a little forward in his plush chair, elbows on knees, lifting folded fingers to his mouth and then dropping them back down a moment. "This whole... thing.. has put me in a lot of positions I don't like to stand in. I have friends on the force who are working this thing from dusk 'til dawn, and I can't tell them they're barking up the wrong tree because I can't tell them about us. I've lost a couple friends, and so have a lot of other people, and to be honest that pisses me off. So now I've got this asshole Stoughton sitting pretty in one of my apartments, and I can't turn him over to the people who don't know what he is, and I can't let him out because he'll keep killing my friends.

"But there's such a thing as justice. Usually determined by the people. So right now some people are going to show up, and I guess we have to figure out what's justice. I don't know if that makes sense to you." He looked at her, not begging her to understand, just stating what he knew as he knew it. He waited for some sort of response before continuing.

LIVIA: She sat, somewhat reluctantly. Livia liked things simple, and this was growing ever more convoluted. But she resumed her chair and recrossed her legs, leaning in as he did. To be honest, she didn't much care for the police -- she had very good experiences with them back in Bucharest -- or for the glowing sense of community that seemed to unite them all in tragedy. She had other communities to worry about before a network of people she didn't know. But she could clearly see there was only one ending to this scenario, whatever Davis thought or said.

"I see," she said, after a moment. "But your justice, Mr. Bruin -- your community justice -- is merely therapy, either for those affected or those who like to think they were." A small shrug. "But I see that it is necessary for any justice at all. Not that I am such an advocate of justice." Especially considering her statement earlier. Livia lifted one hand with a blithe sort of smile; c'est la vie. She wouldn't protest their justice if they ultimately found a solution.

DAVIS: Davis lifted his big shoulders, and because they were so big, it was like his whole torso straightening his spine and then slumping again. "Maybe that's so, maybe not. Just how it is. But if you want blood, at least you're halfway sane about it--" he gave her a look that was surprisingly warm with humor, "--and I figure if you want to come down, you're welcome."

LIVIA: She smiled, in spite of herself. It was toothy in a non-threatening sort of way, like a remnant of those little villages outside Bucharest where her mother had grown up, a nice girl planted in the big city. If Livia was anything like a nice girl, anyway. "You are making it sound like some sort of social gathering," she said pleasantly.

DAVIS: "I don't know what to make it sound like," he admitted, "because I don't know what it is." He shrugged again, this time lifting his palms.

LIVIA: "Then you shall take me, and I will see for myself."

DAVIS: He was amused, rather than offended, at her declaration. Davis stood up, shifting all that muscle without much thought, and nodded. "Shall we, then? I imagine Jared's there already. He's the type."

LIVIA: "The mouth," she said genially, as if she'd given them all little titles without their notice, and at Davis' enquiring look, explained, "he is always the one rallying the troops, as it were." She rose a moment after him, straightening clinging dress and hair, and took his arm though he hadn't offered it. He was gentlemanly, and she had old habits. Livia had not left an establishment with her arm to herself in a very long time. "You are going now, or later?"

DAVIS: Davis laughed at that. "Yes," he said again. "But he's not the type for that. He just did it." He didn't seem to mind her on his arm, and he was comfortable with it as far as he thought about it. Mostly, he didn't. He had enough to think about. "Now," he replied firmly.