loch lemach gives zero fucks (cutandthrust) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-01-20 17:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, !playerplot: a building of rooks, loch lemach, ofelia zhou |
the danger is I'm dangerous and I might just tear you apart.
Who: Loch Lemach & Ofelia Zhou
What: Metaphorical tightrope walking.
Where: Ofelia's office
When: 1/13 (backdated)
Rating: PG
Status: Complete.
Ofelia Zhou was a curious woman. One of the reasons she was so good at what she did, perhaps, but also one of the reasons it was important that Loch watch her words around her. One false step, one slip that rang too close to the truth, one minor inconsistency. The slightest mistake, Ofelia would sniff it out of the air and track it to its roots. A shame, to let things go that far. Loch had hired the woman to investigate the case, within certain boundaries which she had carefully placed around her. Invisible walls trapping Ofelia inside a cage she did not realize existed. To keep her inside, Loch had to feed her lies to subjugate the questions she did not want asked, and have them be replaced by safer ones. Ofelia would know the bare minimum she needed to in order to find the backer, and then Loch would resolve the issue, and they could each go on their way. This time, it had been harder to find the perfect bait. Her request came too close to the heart of the matter. There were too many strings binding Loch to this man. The closer they became to unmasking the backer, so too did the risk of discovery increase for Loch. In the end, framing him as a madman obsessed with Ash had worked best. Loch’s concern then could be derived from her original lie, that she wanted revenge for what had been done to her friend. For the moment, Ofelia seemed to have accepted it. Whether she would chew it and spit it out later remained to be seen. A sketchbook rested on the desk. The first few minutes of the meeting were spent with Loch delivering a live rendition of the tale. Her audience watched every gesture, listened to the inflection on every word, and Loch gave her best performance. Halfway through, she lit up and Ofelia reached backward to open the window a crack: the same procedure that had accompanied their last meeting. The draft of ice-cold air took the cigarette smoke with it along with any traces of warmth inside the room. Setting her sketchbook aside for now, shaking off the graphite on her fingertips, Ofelia leaned back in her chair and shrugged deeper into her oversized sweater. “Here’s the address,” Loch said when she’d finished, tossing a piece of folded paper on Ofelia’s desk. “Meant to check it out myself, then I remembered I got a pro on my payroll.” “What are you paying me for, after all,” the investigator said dryly, taking the paper and starting to fish around for her own packet of cigarettes (menthol). “Life would be so much easier if my clients did all their nosing around but still kept sending me the bill.” “Ain’t your birthday, far as I know,” Loch said, amused. The humour was droll, but Ofelia was still looking at the sketch she’d drawn per Loch’s instructions and description. The face of their potential mark had taken shape beneath her fingertips (she’d always liked art—but had never turned it to anything but this, spinning perpetrators and criminals out of thin air). His features solidified under her pencil. “So. To clarify: I’m going to go picking around this warehouse, see if they’ve handily left any incriminating evidence around implying a connection to the noble backer we’ve been chasing for months. Yes?” “Be a good place to start. Finding a full detailed confession might be too much to hope for, but see if this guy works for anyone on your list.” There wouldn’t be anything too incriminating around; this guy was meticulous, a reason it was taking so long to track him down. Then again, the lack of concrete evidence wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “You find a bunch of bad poetry about Ash’s eyes instead, you can drop this and continue with whatever lead you were following before.” “I do have those thirteen names narrowed down a bit.” Ofelia’s pencil had started rapping against the notebook unconsciously, the wood snapping and drumming on the paper: one, two, three. She was one mere step away from an oral fixation and chewing on the end, only held off by the cigarette already occupying that space. “If you’re right about this man,” (and how convenient that Loch happened to notice this fellow lurking about) “then I think this is a very promising lead indeed. If the person renting this warehouse is on my shortlist, well. Emillion’s a city of coincidences, but not that many coincidences.” She was unfolding the piece of paper, fetching a smaller flipbook from her pocket and copying the address down. Warehouse 108-B, near Fleetpurse Row in the Tenements. The winter air still curled in, grasping from the window. As she wrote, Loch watched her, weighing the expression on Ofelia’s face against the echo of her last words. They spoke agreement, but rang like a question. It was a thin line underneath her feet, and a big drop below—for both of them. Loch took a casual drag from her cigarette and relaxed in the chair, as though she wasn’t using every scrap of concentration she possessed on keeping her balance. “Could be nothing, like I said.” A minute shrug. “Could be just a stalker. If this is some random guy, Ash is more than capable of dealing with him. Nothing to worry about there.” Her fingers came up to graze the side of her face, where Ash had left a fist-sized bruise during their last Ring fight. (Ofelia had been present, and so the gesture added a nice touch of reality, in Loch’s opinion). “But if he ain’t, I wanna know.” What a devoted friend you are, Ofelia almost said, but took another pull of her own cigarette instead, her inhales and exhales matching the other woman once more. What big teeth you have. “And remind me again. Your preferred procedure if this does turn out to be the man we’re looking for? Any bugs I should leave behind in the warehouse, perhaps? Memstone capture to track his conversations?” ‘Next steps’ were always on the woman’s mind, after all, though she knew Loch’s plans for this man (for whatever reason) seemed to lead towards a short drop and a sudden stop. She could understand vengeance quite well, she thought. A slow smile spread across Loch’s features. Devoid of warmth, and the first truth she had offered since the start of the meeting. “My preferred procedure? I’m sure you can imagine. But all you have to do is find out if he’s related to the backer, and see if you can learn where I may be able to chat with him.” That, and nothing more, she left unsaid. What Ofelia didn’t know wouldn’t kill her, as long as she didn’t go looking for it. “You said you narrowed down your list?” “At the risk of boring you with details on dead ends, we’re down to six or seven of your original number. Want them?” The first answer that came was yes. Loch gestured with her hand, batting away both the impulse and Ofelia’s offer. “Nevermind that. Six or seven means you still got some narrowing down to do. I’ll keep sending bills your way until you get me just the one.” “And it’s all fairly theoretical until I can get eyes on the man, anyway.” Ofelia fought back a sudden shiver – she was sitting too close to the window, that was all, her chair was on the wrong side of the desk. She reached out, snapping the latch with a click; her office could survive a little bit of smoke. The last time they’d done this, it had been autumn. “Either way. I’ll get on this as soon as possible. Anything else you wanted to add?” The broker was already rising, fussing with the papers on the desk, reorganising them. A plan was coalescing. Loch rose from the chair and extinguished her cigarette. It went out with a low hiss and joined the corpses of countless other interviews in the ashtray. She did not expect anything further from Ofelia; with the window closed, warmth was returning to the room. Their conversation was at an end. “Keep me updated,” she said, and headed to the door. It swung shut behind her with a sound like a curtain fall. |