ofelia zhou deals in secrets. (consultancy) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-04-15 23:14:00 |
|
|||
They always said to follow the money. So she did. After the Founders Festival was over, so was the miniature vacation: Ofelia went back to the grind, chasing invoices, hitting up her usual contacts at the lounge, and chasing the nebulous lead she’d obtained on this confidence trickster of dubious descent. Her assistant was busy preparing for her not-wedding, which left the broker on her own—but then again, it didn’t seem a case likely to end in a pile of bodies on the docks, so the starling was fine flying solo. He’d covered his tracks well. But it wasn’t as hard as other cases she’d worked; he was no murderer evaporating into the night to escape the noose, no cultist brother melting into nothingness. Her quarry was a mere thief (admittedly, a very good one), and though he’d left a string of broken and shattered families in his wake, he whetted his appetite with gil alone, not blood. The more she read up on his likely past victims, the more he annoyed her. The con man was a carrion feeder, a vulture picking at the carcasses of his prey before moving on, gorged and sated. But it helped that he was Guild: the key to the whole affair was a regular tithe sent to the council every year, from all corners of Valendia, under different aliases, but always with the same routing number. A stamp, a mark of identity, a slight slip of carelessness, assuming that no one would hunt him from within his own organisation (Riyeko had made the right choice, then, in joining the Thieves Guild so long ago). By trawling her contacts at the bank and in the safehouses, Ofelia eventually pulled up the most recent callsign, A.G., and a location where she could find him. Two and a half weeks later, they met in the lounge. She was not as herself; he was not as himself. “So you’re breeding a gold chocobo?” Ofelia asked breathily, leaning forward onto her elbows, attention riveted on the prospect he was selling. He was performing, and she could tell. “Oh, yes,” the man said, with an expansive gesture. “We have several breeding experts on hand, plus impeccable bloodlines and pedigree for the birds—I brought the certificates as agreed, look,” and he started shuffling his papers, shoving a heavy certificate across the table. Ofelia picked it up, skimmed the heraldry, pretended to be enthralled in the details of stallion, mare, and chick. “It’s just the matter of starting capital,” the man was saying, his voice just the right level of apologetic, contrite, and excited. (She wondered if, perhaps, he’d been an orator before turning to this line of work.) He didn’t precisely fit the description Lionward had given her. But then again, you could obtain tooth implants to cover a missing canine; makeup could cover a faint scar on the forearm; there were lenses one could wear to adjust eye colour. And the years had moved onwards since the last description, carving their path into his skin and face, creating crevasses and valleys that hadn’t been there a decade ago, when Riyeko Lionward first memorised his features with childlike hatred. His hair was starting to be tinged with grey. Ofelia wondered if he even remembered the Lionwards. Wondered if he kept records of his various conquests over the years, an archive to rival her own filing cabinets at home. Because it was him, of course. Ofelia sat at that table, dressed in her heavy navy blue dress and looking for all the world like a well-to-do civilian, a merchant’s wife who married up and found herself in possession of new money in need of a good home and investment. This meeting was the crowning moment, the achievement, the confirmation. Atlas Genovese kept talking. (Not his real name; the one he’d used with the Lionwards as their erstwhile financier had obviously been fake, sloughed off along with layers upon layers of artifice building over the years, a cat’s cradle which Fee had been untangling piece by piece over the last few months.) The information broker seated across from him felt her web tightening. At the end of the interview, she palmed a cash advance into his eager hands, a way to assuage worries and keep him on the hook (because she’d be reeling him in by the end of the week, and justice would be done and her fee collected). She then shook his hand and squeezed just a little too hard, right at the curve of his wrist where she knew, if Atlas Genovese was the man she sought, it had been shattered some ten years earlier. She watched his face—and saw the ripple which flew across it, a flicker in the corner of the eye, pain fleeting into his expression before it was quickly suppressed. It was the same sort of look Ofelia betrayed whenever she put weight on her knee incorrectly, stepped the wrong way, bodies revolting against their ill treatment. But it hadn’t been plaguing her as much for the past month, not since buckling that leather-and-iron brace around her knee. Lionward’s invention had proven itself nicely, and it was time to repay the eager young girl who sat waiting on the other side of the city with her dog, her piles of blueprints, and her machinery. “You’re currently installed in the Theatre District, aren’t you?” Ofelia asked, all shy interest, and Atlas was quick to nod. “Aye, yes—I’m there at least through next week before I need to get back to the ranch. Lots of investors are eager to get in on this, you know. It’s going to make at least half a million, by the end. And then just think of the racing potential....” “85 Loire Lane? That’s where I should send the courier with the cheque, correct?” “Correct.” His manner always mimicked hers; it was a good act, she had to admit. It would have done wonders for putting her at ease, were she not herself—Atlas didn’t seem a slimy salesman but a coiffed professional, his suit perfect, his paperwork impeccable. He projected confidence and assurance all at once, radiating charisma. She could see how so many families could have fallen for it. Your gil is in good hands, his aura seemed to scream. It’ll multiply by the end of the year. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. She took her leave of the man, dropping more gil onto the table to cover their bill. Down the street, Ofelia finally wiped down her hand on her coat as if she’d touched something distasteful, then reached for her communicator as the web tightened, tightened. |