Repose

[The story is in one of the smaller, scrappier papers in the Capital but it means it's punchier than the heavyweights would make it, after time with lawyers. It picks up the thread of a narrative of guilt, of a man who had climbed out of a viper's nest of internal corruption, bribes and heads firmly turned the opposite way from the sort of crime that bubbled under the surface of the Capital. The man is quoted and when the publication hits the newsstands, he's long-gone from Repose, perhaps fearing repercussions on confessions on a bellyful of beer in the small hours. The Capital isn't a shockwave place. It's known, of course, that the cops aren't straight so much as permanently crooked. But there's veiled hints within the narrative of the cop with a conscience, of something bigger that's funnelling money into their pockets.]

[Delivered by virtue of the post-office. One wrapped and folded into a card: one a certificate of membership to Kew Gardens, notable for the living plant collection, and two, a substantial donation to the WWF. It comes with a bottle of Glen Grant 18 year old whiskey and there's a slip of paper folded into the card that reads simply: the pocket-watch seemed to suit your coat, the whiskey was laid down when you were twelve, which seems like the last time you had a birthday gift from me of any real substance, and I have no idea what to give you when you've got an entire world full of somethings, but presumably Kew might have something living it isn't expecting. Have a good birthday, Jack.]

Who: Jack & Cat
When: Recent-ish?
Warnings: TBD.

The building was in the name of someone who was likely long-since dead or had never existed in the first place. It was old and the apartments overhead were likely cheap and illegally overcrowded, but no one was calling the cops on the landlord if they had a rental. The bar was in one of the dirtier ends of the Capital, but not so far on the borders as to lose utter respectability. It opened up onto a street, faced and fronted by a restaurant that looked equally seedy, but the sort of place that had probably once been reputable and had just slowly decayed, acquiring a staff who worked under the table and for cash in hand, but who were never evicted at dawn by ICE. It was a very far-off world from the rarefied air of the people who traded lives by the handful without batting an eye as they moved chips around on well-kempt baize, but that, Jack supposed, was the point. This was the end of town in which it was not outright criminal in outward appearance, but neither was it respectable enough there were any neighbors who were likely to complain and expect a response from the cops. That sort of place, where high-rollers bet, they didn't think they were at risk. There was a suggestion, in this end of town, that people had something to lose.

It was a drinking hole frequented by the police chief, and the restaurant across the road, he brought his family every once in a while. It was a show of respectability, even if the streets scattered around were full of people who made their living from all the things the police chief turned his head away from, and he could be found there regularly enough that it loaned the place a veneer of normality that would peel if you put it under strong light. Jack had followed up the leads from the interview with the bent cop in the bar, and the various lines led to this particular section of town - where the street lights that worked were cracked, and washed the sidewalks a sickly yellow that didn't do much to improve visibility. Which was an added comfort, presumably.

Word had come from one of the guys who worked a corner a couple of streets over (drugs, not sex: Jack had inquiries in with just about any bloody body who might have tracked down Dahlia) that one of the handoffs was here, and probably tonight and Jack had come because he couldn't leave it alone. The cop in the bar had been a bottom-feeder. He barely knew what it was he was involved in, and had run scared at the first opportunity. It was a dangling loose end, or multiple of them, and Jack - Jack after Lebanon and the camps, Jack couldn't bloody resist yanking.

He had a camera, tiny but functional and he was dressed as if headed for Second City, muted and unobtrusive and christ alone knew if the cash would be transferred in the bar or the back-alley, but he was sat with a pint, in the area closest to the back where the bar met what was optimistically open space, with recessed seating further back, where the group of men were sat, with their own beer and chat, and at least one was noticeably one of the cops the guy he'd bought for a couple of pints, had tapped up.

[Just after he's showered.]

[Locked to Atticus M]
Kid.

[Locked to Janus A]
Hey.

[Locked to Cat C]
Cat, how are you? How's the bar?

[Locked to Claire J]
Hey, Claire, for some reason, I didn't know you knew Janus.

[Locked to Marta F]
How're you doing?

[Locked to PJ R]
PJ?

[Locked to Dahlia H]
Hi, Dahlia.

Who: Vaughn(actually Alyssa) and Eames
What: She finds him in a dream and turns his memories into a chewtoy
Where: Dreamland!
When: Most recent.
Warnings: None I think.

( It was just a dream, darling, but Eames forgot, momentarily. )

[note for newt p]

[Sent on Newt's birthday. The card is signed simply.] Happy birthday. To your next thirty years being as full of adventure as the last. - Adrian

[locked to ren s]

[After sending the above note. Rather late.] Hello. Are you working?