Sloan 'Seven' Morgan & Alcide Herveaux (awerething) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-08-24 20:21:00 |
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Seven sat and watched the kid for nearly a quarter of an hour from the front seat of his own car. Not his new car, of course - he’d wisely chosen to leave the Romeo Giulietta '61 Sprint Speciale at home in his mansion’s garage. Too obvious. Not even the usual blacked-out Escalade that he usually conducted business from, on those occasions when he chose to pepper his bulk income with some individual sales. No, tonight he sat in a nondescript gray sedan, parked a little ways down the block from their arranged meeting point where he would be able to watch the bench in his side mirror. A wraith in the shadows, soft black clothing blending into the background of the deserted lane with a steady tendril of smoke curling up over his head and out through the open window, into the sticky evening air where it hung like fog. The boy had come alone, as instructed. He’d walked without any cars or pedestrians following, and none of the buildings along the street had so much as a single window without the curtains drawn and the lights out. No one else was watching. Even from a distance, Seven could see the way that the boy’s knees shook, and it wasn’t from nerves - oh, if only. He was hurting, with that sharp craving working its way down under his sternum and into his chest cavity, dark and deep and dreadful. He was on edge. Desperate. That was good. Seven liked desperate. Desperate meant he could charge more and not have to worry about losing a sale. Desperate meant that the boy would cooperate with Seven’s refusal to make any sort of drug deal outside of a vehicle, because a vehicle could outrun the pigs faster than his own two feet. Desperate meant that he had the upper hand, and Seven never did business unless he had an upper hand - or two. When the glowing-red numbers of the clock in his dash showed thirty minutes past the hour, he clamped his cigarette between his lips and shifted the car into gear with a purr of the engine. He pulled a quick u-turn and crawled up the length of the street until he was even with his new client where he waited on a bench, reaching over to push the passenger door open with one swift movement. “Get in.” The look on his face left little room for discussion. Acquiescence was a crawl into the passenger's seat, all spider-limbs and gossamer web. His cigarette had been forfeited to the curb, and the car door concealed them from those amber lights cast in sharp contrast along that impossibly long, impossibly empty street. The seatbelt wasn't bothered with -- that wasn't why they were here. "Nice ride." Served dry. He'd been sugarsweet on the telephone, and that was all that was necessary. This was where things tended to get ugly, and the whore had no patience for these deals in discretion across a center console. Too much could go wrong when someone was too close, and oh, was this too close for comfort. It was, unfortunately, quite obvious what this pathetic boy expected of their transaction. Get in, procure substances, get out - easy peasy. Too bad that he had no idea of exactly who he was dealing with. No, this whore only knew him as a stepping stone to the gory innards of Vegas, and someone who happened to provide his own goodies. Seven stepped on the gas in the same instant that the boy had closed the door, enjoying the swirl of light and heat that enveloped his brain as he shot the vehicle forward into the stretch of night that lay before them. Yellowish, flickering streetlamps bounced off their skin every few feet and it was all Seven could do to contain his delight. “Seventy-five. Cash. Put it in the glove compartment, then take out the black bag.” Seven was no idiot. This kid was aching hard and deep for a hit, and Seven knew he would have done just about anything for that particular plastic baggie. “After that, I'm going to pull over and you’re going to get out of this car and walk away. Got it?” The blonde laughed despite the car's velocity hitting straight in his gut. Those unfamiliar beasts always made him uneasy -- it had taken a constant string of heroin and alprazolam to get him from Chicago to Vegas in one piece, and his fingers gripped at the seat under his thighs -- safe from sight. "You must think I'm a fucking moron." He looked the driver up and down, eyes sharp despite his dulled senses. "Listen, baby -- I'm not your tween whore junky who'll pay anything for a fix, and I sure as fuck know you're shit's not that golden or you wouldn't have taken a call from someone you didn't know so readily. You said fifty; that's what you're getting for the q you promised." His voice was smooth as silk, a satin burn that spoke of too much known at too little an expense. No matter how much vehemence was put into the words, Seven couldn’t help but let his head fall back against the headrest as he laughed. It was a deep sort of chuckle that rumbled in his chest and spilled past his lips and echoed around the interior of the vehicle, fiery and dangerous. ”I don’t think you’re anything except a customer. A bratty, self-entitled customer, but a customer nonetheless.” Seven gunned the engine in order to speed through a yellow light and then hung a hard left, hooking the car around a residential bend in the road and shifting in and out of gear like he was making love or disarming an atom bomb: delicious precision from deft fingers. “No, sweetheart -” and here he spared a glance in the other’s direction, a lopsided grin shining through the darkness in the beam of every streetlight they passed in the early hours. “You listen to me. You expect me to give your name to my clients? You want to earn a decent bunk turning tricks with the people that I know? Because you sure better not expect to get that for free. You don’t earn that sort of connection with just a little bit of cash - or haven’t you figured out how this city works yet?” Seven slammed the car into the next gear without ceremony, intentionally throwing them both into a particularly strong change in forces and snickering softly when they rounded a bend and the boy was half-thrown against the locked passenger door. When the road before them was entirely empty and he could risk it, Seven chanced a longer gaze at the other and even ended up drifting into the deserted oncoming lane for a second, while he raised an eyebrow at the boy’s audacity. “You think you’re going to say no? Please, go ahead. Run along to your friendly neighbourhood dope dealer and pay street price for some stepped-on, cut-up shit that will turn your veins black and have you crawling back for more within the hour. You think I make deals with nobody-hookers like you every day? Because my shit isn’t that golden? Sweetheart, it's the best shit that the likes of you will ever have the pleasure of stuffing into your starved little body, and you will get down on your knees and thank me for it. Especially when I pass along your name and number to a select handful of my clients.” Seven cut across a main road to pass under a bridge, one hand gripping at the wheel while he pulled a sharp u-turn through the shadows. This way they could head back through the same side of town and avoid taking the freeway, which would have been far too precarious a situation for conducting an illicit trade of substances. “Think of it as an investment, alright?” "An investment?" His voice was flat and even, and those eyes were everlocked on the dealer at his side. He was about to vomit, the inertia of the car already leaving bruises on knocked knees and bony elbows as he was slammed every which way against the leather enveloping them. A hitch in that wretched throat caused him to silence, and with the utmost discretion a hand came to claw at the edge of his seat, knuckles flush to the door's console beside him. "And how do I know I'll be making return on that, baby? Tell me -- because your dealings are already far from honest." It could have been naive -- but really, it was more self-preservation than a lack of knowing better. He knew the way dark men did deeds -- knew the alleycat deception that punctuated each and every wretch's paranoia so that it fucking bled with fight or flight; that's all he'd ever had to drive himself forward. But this -- this was everything on the line, and he was given little room for compromise. Only assurance, only acquiescence. "I think you'll find it reasonable not to bend to terms that won't be honored. Terms that I certainly didn't expect for free." A glance, sidelong. "Or did you forget what 'trade of services' means?" It was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes outright. God, but it was tiresome dealing with babies. Seven had almost forgotten - perhaps that was why he'd even bothered to help this one out tonight. Normally he would have tossed this kid together with one of his lowly-yet-loyal street dealers and let nature run its course, but he’d been intrigued by the boy’s offer of a trade. “Darling, my business practices are the most goddamn fair that you will ever find out here in the desert. I am giving you the finest quality dope - “ here he held up one finger on the hand that wasn’t gripping the steering wheel, as they merged onto a busier street and he slowed down to a reasonable speed. “ - at the most reasonable price you could dare to hope for, - ” (Another finger.) “ - and I am giving you the opportunity to get your foot in the door in a cutthroat business. Literally. You pick up the wrong trick, walk into the wrong man’s hotel room, and see how long it takes for you to wind up with your pretty little face all cut up and plastered over the evening news.” Seven’s heart was still racing with the adrenaline that his daredevil stunt driving had squeezed out into his veins (encouraged by the neat little bumps of powder he’d sniffed off the back of his hand early in the evening), but his hands were both steady on the wheel and when he turned to the boy his expression was calm and appraising. “The extra cash is a start-up fee. If you really just want the dope, take the dope for fifty. But I'm offering more than you even deserve. I thought you were serious, but if I was wrong then don’t waste my time any more than you already have.” "I'd prefer if you didn't tell me what I deserve outside of your dues, darling." He reached into his back pocket, all split nerves. The settled speedometer slowed his heartbeat, but still his knees were quaking, afflicted by far more than lowly addictions. Despite it all, his voice remained a trained tenure -- smooth and elegant in spite of his dirty mouth and the sick in his gut. He carded bills out carefully. The soft flutter of each against its other filled the silence -- replaced his own assurances that Seven didn't deserve. For clients he offered little talk -- he let his work speak for itself, and oh, was it divinity when flesh ran fetid with desire, when the strongest of men became wanton dogs in his wake. With an arched eyebrow and a straight face, he folded the bills crisply down their center, reaching for the glove compartment gingerly. As promised, there was a bag to be traded for his investment. It would be enough for a half-day if he paced himself, but if Seven was as reliable as he claimed he'd be receiving payment for a teenth a day, which would be loyalty enough to secure anything. Those dirty substances were swapped, the glove compartment shutting tersely after the deal was done. “See?” Seven’s tone was nothing if not smug when the boy reluctantly counted out a bit of his soul in the form of wrinkled bills. “Now how difficult was that?” He would have laughed aloud were he not aware of how close the boy was to throwing a hissyfit in his car. Instead he settled for giving himself silent praise, pulling back around into an alley that threaded between several city blocks, slowing the vehicle down to a purr that crept through the night like a sly carnivore. He was satisfied and buzzing thick with heartbeats, pressing tight against his wrists and his ankles and his teeth. Spilling over, hard and sharp. "As heart failure." Droll, defeatist in its own way. His eyes cast across Seven, that angry lord beside him who veins coursed with vices of their own, and he grinned in spite of himself -- a cocky little gesture that veiled what he found so fucking funny. "I'll refrain from patronizing you any further. But if your cut is as good as you say and you deliver on patronage you'll be hearing from me quite frequently, and only with the best of intention." He drew another fifty from that stack of bought pleasures, with intent to buy just one more. He held it between his fingers, hovered above the gear-shift -- in a warzone that bordered breached neutrality. "For wasted time." Really, that amount meant little to him in the grand scheme of things. His naivety on account of being a lucky little high-class hooker in Chicago had served him poorly thus far, and any assurance of good business was an expense he would gladly suffer. This wasn't a city where you got to sit pretty and have men brought to you -- this was a city where each rat had its own measures for survival, and Trystan couldn't outrun the waters just yet. “Bless your little heart,” Seven crooned into the darkened interior of the nondescript vehicle, an absence of light in the back alley that sliced through houses and avenues made up of a child’s wooden blocks, scattered haphazard where they decayed. Running high on power like a fuse going haywire, Seven smile flickered bright with something dangerous and sly. He was authority and he was fuel, burning in the night. His hands flexed where they gripped the wheel and he steered them onto the next street, pulling up half a block short of their original meeting place. “Darling, I must say - “ he murmured softly, leaning the length of his torso into the boy’s personal space and reaching across him to open the passenger-side door. It was all unnecessary chivalry, merely a means of dismissing him, letting him know that Seven was done with him... for now. At the last moment before he pulled back, Seven winked. “It’s been a pleasure. I’ll see you soon, to be sure.” |