Orrie likes arrows (sagittal) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-04-29 18:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | green arrow, viola |
Who: Orin and Preston
What: A plan
Where: A strip club
When: Early today
Warnings: None
Orin hadn’t bothered with a phone call, and he hadn’t bothered using the comms. He’d left Aubade after his argument with Valerie, and he had his driver take him to Sparke Industries. He didn’t get out of the car, not wanting to encounter Anton (or that damn secretary of his), and he waited outside the employee entrance. He leaned against the side of the car, and he watched the building as if that would make Preston come outside faster.
It took about thirty seconds for security to notify Preston that Orin Monarch was standing outside the employee entrance like an especially well-dressed janitor taking a smoke break. He told them to stand down and to leave the man alone, even though there were some protests that it might just be a look-alike. Afterward he went for a walk--out the front doors, and then he moved around the building so that he stood just out of the eyes of the cameras. He made a little ‘come hither’ gesture after he stepped into view. “Come out of the cameras. Bee in your bonnet, Mr. Monarch?”
Orin looked up at the cameras, the ones he’d intentionally positioned himself under, and then he looked back at Preston. It was the first time he’d seen the other man since that drunken night, the one that came with all sorts of offers he hadn’t taken, and he didn’t push away from the car. “How about you get inside instead, son?” he asked, motioning to the open back door with a cocksure grin and an entertained expression that did little to hide the fact that yes, there was bee in his bonnet.
Preston wasn’t the same in the daylight. He was in a suit that spelled out business in large block type, sober and gray and serious. His expression was of mild, polite curiosity, and the only vulnerability was a hesitance in the very back of his eyes, which he did a very good job of shadowing. He slid a look at the car and then back at Orin. There was something wrong, most definitely. Preston turned and got in, sliding all the way over to the opposite door to make room. He had a good memory for faces and looked ahead to see if the same man was driving as the last one he’d seen bringing Orin to a press conference. Same one. “What’s this all about?”
“You ever stop to think you shouldn’t just get into cars with folks?” Orin asked as he climbed in and closed the car. “There’s a bar around the corner,” he told the driver, who immediately knew where he meant; Orin visited a lot of bars, and the driver knew just where to find them. He draped an arm over the back of the seat, as if he didn’t have a damn trouble in all the world. “Me and you, we got to talk to about something,” he said, which offered no clarity whatsoever. “How you been?”
“Dark times indeed in which the CEO of Monarch can’t be trusted,” Preston commented, without any sign of nerves. It was like they were going to a lunch meeting on a particularly slow day. He put one ankle over the opposite knee and glanced only once at the window to note their direction before looking back at Orin’s face. His mild response rang all Preston’s alarm bells, but he wasn’t afraid. He nodded thoughtfully, but didn’t comment. “Had a nice vacation,” he said, neutral as tap water.
Orin noticed things he hadn’t noticed in his previous meetings with the man. The way he crossed his leg, which was a whole lot more delicate than his own inelegant sprawl, for example. “Oh, you can’t ever trust the CEO of Monarch,” he said, grinning around the words in a way that was old and practiced and entirely believable. “Meet anyone worth mentioning? Do anyone I would have done?”
Preston was aware Orin was looking at him different, and it wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It had happened plenty of times before, however, and Preston dropped his eyes to the floor once, letting his lashes breathe over his cheekbone a moment, before the steady gaze returned. “It was a family trip,” he said, simply. “Not your kind of fun, I don’t think.” A slight tilt of the head.
“Anything can be my kind of fun,” Orin said, looking out the car window and tapping it after a moment, letting the driver know to stop. He opened the door, and he climbed out outside a strip club, a cheap and tawdry one, and he inclined his head. “Here’s good,” he said, because he trusted the women inside more than he trusted the ones with money or aspirations.
It was sad, Preston thought, that he didn’t look even a little out of place here. He straightened the lapels of his suit as he got out of the car, an automatic gesture from someone who automatically disembarks from the back of cars all the time. He glanced at Orin, but not in distaste. Anton had been to worse places. He didn’t reach back, letting the driver shut the door, and waited for Orin to precede him.
Orin knew the place, and the girls inside knew him. He led them to a quiet, semi-circle booth, ordered them both some good gin, and he slid in to watch the show - at least to all appearances. The girl on the raised stage was swinging on a pole with no clothes and even less skill, and Orin’s attention seemed to be focused on her as soon as he sat down. In truth, he was taking in the fact that Preston seemed unperturbed by the location, which was more than a little surprising.
Preston sat down, and even though the place made him want to get his suit dry cleaned, he didn’t seem any more disturbed than he had out front. He didn’t touch the table, he just took his drink and watched the girl move around the pole, tracking her movement around and around with a little more than clinical observance, but not too much more. She wasn’t very good at that, it seemed awkward; Preston figured he was spoiled by classier places that had been Anton’s more dependable norm when he was (relatively) sober. He wasn’t in any hurry, and he didn’t push for information. He just sat and waited.
Orin brought the drink glass to his lips, and he wished for better stuff, and then he got down to brass tacks. “I got a problem, and I need your help,” he said following Preston’s gaze to the stage a second later. “You like her at all?” The question was one born of curiosity.
Preston’s eyes came back to Orin’s face, and he didn’t so much as blink at the question. “My help. This is going to be interesting.” He lifted the glass and took a sip. He made a slightly sour face, used to better, but he didn’t complain.
Orin chuckled when Preston didn’t answer. He was a vain enough man to enjoy being found attractive, regardless of who was doing the looking, and he suspected the girl and her terrible dancing didn’t do a whole lot for the man across from him. “See, I’m engaged to a real peach of a woman, and I need to convince her I’m not me.”
That wasn’t what Preston meant, but he let Orin preen, settling his glass between his hands and redirecting his gaze away again. The woman was on her feet again, and she did better when she wasn’t trying to be gymnastic. “So disengage.”
Orin chuckled. “Women ain’t as easy as all that, son,” he said, ignoring the woman entirely now in favor of the man at his side. “But she’s getting ideas, see, that need adjusting. I don’t want that whole mess with the Bat coming around again. The fewer people that know something, the better.” He stopped just short of explaining that Valerie was marrying him for his money, and that it stood to reason she would use the information against him. And he stopped just short of saying that because he just wasn’t sure anymore.
Unfortunately for Orin, Preston was a romantic. He yanked his eyes off the stage, brows up. “You’re marrying someone you don’t want to have ideas about who you are? That’s not a problem I can fix for you, Monarch.” He smiled an amused, perhaps even slightly sadistic smile. Orin going to trouble for one woman was rather funny, after all. You just had to look at it the right way.
“I’m marrying a woman who wants my money, under a contract that gives her my money if she marries me. This isn’t a love story, Preston,” Orin said, shaking his drink glass and making the ice clink. “If she loved me, I wouldn’t be asking you for the favor I’m asking you for.”
“And you don’t love her, either,” Preston said, looking into Orin’s eyes and reading the distrust there. “Then what the hell are you marrying her for?” He had not thought Monarch was that stupid. Preston’s head was tilted in disbelief. Maybe all that cocaine had rotted the man’s brain stem or something.
“Big weddings draw attention to things that have nothing to do with arrows, son,” Orin explained, lifting the glass in silent toast before taking a sip. “No one thinks a family man is out getting himself nearly killed nights, either. Nothing better as a cover than a wife and kid,” he explained, though his jaw tightened when he said it. He realized, even as he said the word, that for all his talk he had been worried about both women, when it came right down to it.
“You’re using this woman to cover for you? In exchange for money?” Preston was horrified by the cheapening of such a relationship, and it was starkly audible.
“Preston,” Orin said, giving the man a look that said he wasn’t so sure he wasn’t talking to a woman just then. “You know women marry rich men for money, right? You understand that happens and it’s got nothing to do with love? There’s no point in pretending it does. I made the woman a business offer that’s going to make her damn rich, and she accepted. We don’t even sleep in the same damn bed.”
Preston snorted. “I’ve been working for Sparke for ten years, Monarch. I think I know why many women marry rich men. Do I think that’s a good reason for rich men to take advantage of the impulse? No, not really. Ten to one Miss Anna has no idea what she’s signing up for as your cover. And I’m not talking about your bad habits.” Preston looked significantly at the glass in Orin’s hand, and then back at his face.
“She’s doing it for the money. It’s a job,” Orin said, getting frustrated enough to replace the glass on the table with a loud thunk. “Son, I’m not asking you to understand. I’m asking for your help. You opposed to giving it?”
Preston knew very well that he had the upper hand here, and like any good businessman he pressed his advantage. “She doesn’t even know what she’s doing. Maybe she’s figured out by now that it makes her a target, and maybe I think she has a right to know.”
“I don’t TRUST HER, Preston,” Orin said, voice raising and frustration of the argument that ensued prior coming through in the words. “I didn’t do this because I trust the woman. There are some things you just don’t tell folks you don’t trust. This is one of them, because people end up dead.” He looked back toward the stage. “I’ll convince her I’m not him, and then I’ll set her loose with her money,” he said, jaw tight. “That better?”
Preston got yelled at a lot by people that meant him no harm. He didn’t flinch. “You shouldn’t marry somebody you don’t trust,” he said, in a tone that verged on reluctant agreement. “I’m assuming you want me to be you in some capacity,” he added, with serious discomfort.
“Your opinions of marriage aren’t the same as mine, and yes, I do.” There was no friendliness in the statement. There wasn’t even any warmth.
Preston pushed his glass away. “How’d she find out?”
Orin knew, based on Preston’s reaction to the marriage, that he wouldn’t like the truth, and so he gave the other man as little of it as he could manage. “She saw me with my shirt off.” Which was not a lie, technically.
Lucky girl, Preston thought. His expression didn’t change, and his eyes didn’t move; he had a lot of practice hiding that particular sentiment. He asked, slightly sardonic, “You didn’t plan on this happening when you moved in with her?”
“No. We’ve got separate rooms, and I wasn’t thinking when I changed in front of her,” Orin said, anger with himself in the words. “Damn woman threw lemonade on me.” Because that was clearly the reason for this entire mess. It had nothing to do with his own stupid choices and everything to do with that damn lemonade.
Preston blinked, and then he laughed out loud. Preston had a very even, neutral voice, but his laugh was much better. Richer. One or two heads turned. “I bet she did. About your most recent pub crawl?” He sipped his gin.
“No,” Orin said grouchily, a definite sulk on his lips as he motioned for a fresh drink. “Because I locked her the hell up.”
Preston lost his grin. “You what?”
“I rented her and Willow a safer damn apartment, and she acted like I’d shoved her in prison.” He took the new drink, and he rolled his eyes in a way that said women!
“Oh.” Preston was male, after all, and he didn’t think to ask anything else about that. “Why didn’t you just pay her to leave?” he asked, curiously.
“I told her we should break the contract; she doesn’t seem inclined.” That didn’t explain, Orin knew, why he hadn’t pushed the issue, and he was hoping Preston wouldn’t call him on it. “You going to help me?”
Nice try, Orin. You’re talking to the man that practically runs one of your biggest competitors. “Why do you think she wouldn’t break it?” he asked mildly, glancing at the stage as the next dancer came on. This one had more clothes, as it was the beginning of the act, and his gaze stayed there while he waited for an answer.
“Hell if I know what that damn woman is thinking,” Orin said. Yep, definitely grumpy.
“Did you ask?” The girl was wearing plaid.
“She said something about the money.” Orin didn’t care what the hell the girl was wearing.
Orin was not stupid enough not to pay attention to what this woman was doing or saying, and it interested Preston a great deal why he was going to the trouble. “Oh really? What?” Preston was still watching the stage, where various plaid things were being shed in favor of lace things.
“Something about needing the damn money,” Orin said. “Would you quit ogling that damn girl on the stage? She ain’t that interesting, even to me, and I like that kind of thing,” he said, annoyance not hidden at all.
Preston wasn’t intimidated. “I like the glasses,” he said, smiling at the girl on the stage even from the distance of booth to stage. This was true, and since Preston refused to conform with what people seemed to expect about his sexuality, he put his elbows on the table and didn’t look away. “She needs the money. So she’s dependent. That is interesting. Why do you think she would expose you if she’s dependent?”
“I’m giving her enough damn money that she doesn’t need me!” Orin finally said, frustration adding to the volume. “I don’t know why the fool woman doesn’t understand that.” He looked at the girl (and her glasses) and then back at Preston, who had managed to confuse him, now. “Hold on. You like cock.”
Preston shot him a nasty look. “Do shut up, Orin. If this woman you are marrying is getting enough money, but she said she needed it too much to leave, then it follows she was either lying or cannot count. Is she stupid?”
“She might like the spotlight, some women like that kind of thing.” Orin said it, but he didn’t believe it, and the statement was heavy with halfheartedness. He just grinned at Preston’s command that he shut up, following it up with a wink.
The wink rankled because Preston knew very well what such winks meant if Orin had been looking at a woman. He scowled and looked away. Riposte. Preston tapped his fingers on the table. “That they do. I haven’t seen any tell-all interviews, though. Did you lock her up that securely?”
Orin, vain bastard that he was, chuckled. That was better. “All I can think is that she’ll get everything if I die, long as she sticks around. She might be waiting to poison me. Lace my coke.” Coke, clearly, was not something he did.
That brought Preston’s head back around; it was a revelation for him. “If that’s the case, she’d be overjoyed if you were...” a small cough, “not yourself. You’re a lot stupider that way, and there a lot more ways for you to die.” The music got a little loud and Preston looked back at the stage, pretending the smirk was directed that way.
“I’d get arrested, and she’d get everything without needing to die, assuming she went to the police,” Orin clarified. “Bottom line is, I don’t want her knowing. Will you help me?”
This girl was doing a much better job, but then again, Preston had a very small, easily-deniable thing for smart brunettes. He sighed, and looked away for good. “I don’t think you’re doing this for the right reasons,” he said. “I don’t know this person you’re trying to fool and I don’t know what, if any, effect it will have. This is why I don’t do this, Monarch.”
Orin looked at him for a long stretch, and he downed his gin a moment later and slid out of the booth. “Might as well get on your feet then, son.” Preston didn’t understand, and he appreciated that most people who didn’t wear a Mask wouldn’t. His jaw was set, but he wasn’t angry about it, and he glanced back at the stage. “Unless you want to stay and watch.”
“Wait.” Preston reached out and caught Orin’s wrist, pulling him back, not hard but inexorable and with more strength than just a tug. “Sit down.”
The grab and grip was not what Orin was expecting, and he looked down at the man in the booth before acquiescing and sliding in again, moving against the red vinyl without taking his eyes off that hand on his wrist. He didn’t say anything once he was settled again. He merely quirked a brow. Yes?
Preston let him go almost as soon as he changed direction. A deep breath through his nose, and Preston looked down at his glass. “You really think she’d turn you in?”
“I chose the woman because I didn’t trust her,” Orin said, adding. “Now, I’m not so sure. I don’t want a damn thing to happen to her, but that’s as far as I know.” It was strange, saying it, but he could hardly deny it after what had just happened.
Preston thought about it. Not long, but he did think about it. He knew that Eli and Shiloh would undoubtedly disapprove, and he knew that it would probably be dangerous, but he wasn’t just going to let Orin get hauled into jail, even if he had got himself mired in his own muck. Preston sighed. “Alright. Once, Orin. Once.”
Orin’s smile was the kind he used to make women melt, and it generally worked. All open and intimate, as if there were a thousand secrets in the smile that no one else had ever seen. “Once,” he agreed. “You just have to go to the office, son. Nothing dangerous. Try not to get too much done while you’re there?”
Testily. “Or talk to anyone, obviously. It needs to be on a Saturday because I have my own work.”
“Son, you can spend the day in the gym staring at your naked body for all I care. Hell, that’s even better.” Orin grinned. “Can you have sex when you’re dolled up?”
Preston shot him a scalding look. “It’s just visual, like a picture in the air. It doesn’t change anything about me. I’m not interested in your playthings, Monarch.” Preston enjoyed a double-entendre as much as the next man.
Orin chuckled, and he sat back comfortably in the booth. His expression was disbelieving, if bordering on fond. “This Saturday?”
“This Saturday.” The pretty one was gone and Preston was in no mood to look at Orin draped over the back of the booth like he’d won something particularly tasty. He slid off the seat, leaving his drink and preventing himself from dusting his hands off like he’d touched something dirty. He was already nervous at the thought of being someone else, particularly this someone, who was so prominent. It went against all his instincts. “How long?”
“Just Saturday, I’ll find something worth going out for during the day,” Orin replied, watching Preston get to his feet. He made it sound like he was considering going out for groceries, and he didn’t mention the fact that going out during the day was something he’d done only a half dozen times at most.
“How long on Saturday,” Preston repeated, standing at the edge of the table and trying to suppress his annoyance when Orin didn’t do likewise.
“Better do the whole afternoon at least,” Orin said, and he sensed that annoyance, which only kept him seated to see what Preston did next. He was finding the man had some unexpected twists and turns to his personality, and Orin always enjoyed folks who surprised him. “Why are you helping me?” he asked.
“Because even though you’re an idiot and selfish, you’re trying to do the right thing, generally, and I don’t necessarily want you to get locked up for it. Call me and tell me when to show up and where to go. You better send me a schematic of your building so I don’t take a wrong turn and visit accounting, which I’m sure you haven’t even seen.” He moved off through the club, threading through chairs and opening a harsh beam of white light when he pushed the street-door open.
“I think I banged someone in accounting,” Orin called after him, loudly enough to be heard across the club, and then he chuckled and asked for another drink and the number of the girl in glasses and plaid. He might as well send Preston a gift to thank him for his hard work, once he was done.