Post by Delilah Ghost on Nov 6, 2008 16:01:27 GMT -6
He set his briefcase down in the sand and looked out at the clear blue water before him. Picture perfect Caribbean waters stretched out for as far as the eye could see. As a lawyer named Vincent Brady removed his suit jacket and loosened his tie, he briefly wondered just how silly a man with flip-flops and Bermuda shorts would look carrying a briefcase. Oh well, he thought, at least I brought my linen suit.
Jacket in one hand, briefcase in the other, Vincent took his time strolling down the beach. A set of docks floated out on the water, a couple of boats were tied off there, two men fishing off the back of one. A third man was walking towards the two with a pitcher of something orange-red in his hands. He seemed to have come from what looked like a large hut on the beach. As Vincent drew closer he could see what in fact looked like an open-air bar of some sort. A bartender had their back to him, busy checking the stock. Further down the beach, a seaplane that looked like it was straight out of a war movie bobbed in the water.
Vincent guessed this must be the place. His client didn't have any actual address for this 'Joe Merchant' person he was supposed to find. He'd thought it strange at first, but once he got down here it'd made perfect sense. Every island down here was practically it's own little country. Duma Key, the Three Sisters, Lone Palm Key, Sawtooth Key and so on and so forth. Vincent floundered for a moment, drawing a blank to the name of the one he was on now. Caddy Key, he said to himself. On the other side of the island, where Vincent had arrived, the main landmark of interest was...well...a bar. It, like this one, sat on the beach outside of town. Outside of that, a very large, very pink caddy that probably had a twin in Elvis' garage, sat in the sand. If any customers wanted to, they could enjoy their food and drink in the car, admiring the view. The car in question had belonged to a much beloved mayor thirty or so years ago. He'd brought so-called 'civilization' to the Key. Electricity, tv and such. Vincent had been told that the only reason they had paved roads on the island was because of that pink Cadillac. The locals renamed the island Caddy Key and made that mayor a folk hero. All because of a giant pink car.
Trippy, Vincent said to himself with a grin.
Silently cursing the wingtips he was wearing, Vincent trudged across the sand and took a seat on one of the stools in front of the bar. He gave the still busy bartender the once-over, guessing she was a woman. Definitely looks like a girl from this angle, he thought, admiring the view. Tanned and lean, she had long red hair tied back in a ponytail. The bikini top and shorts she was wearing did nothing to hide several tattoos and some fairly ugly scars. On her lower back, just above the waistband of her shorts, was a tattoo of an etch-a-sketch. He stared at it, wondering just why someone would have a tattoo like that. She disappeared into the shack for a moment, coming back out with a bottle of rum in each hand.
"Y' want something to drink? I've been told that starin' at my ass is thirsty work."
Vincent just stared at her for a moment, taken off guard by the attractive and somewhat crude girl before him. She was clearly enjoying his shock, judging by the satisfied grin on her face. Amusement glittered in her hazel eyes. His mind raced back over everything his client had told him about her. A crazy thought of Do her eyes smile at you like that over the barrel of a gun flickered in the back of his mind before he squashed it down.
"A beer of some kind, I suppose. Unless you can recommend something fruity?"
She set the bottles down on the bar and gave him an appraising look of her own. Still grinning, she turned her back on him and made a show of bending over to get a bottle of beer out of a cooler underneath the bar. She set it down in front of him, casually propping her elbows on the bar and leaning forward slightly. When Vincent, being male after all, glanced past his beer at her cleavage, she began to laugh.
"I make a mean liquid cocaine, but you just don't seem the fruity type."
"No man could be the fruity type when presented with that," Vincent replied, laughing as well.
"So, Joe Merchant, I presume?"
"J-O. Just Jo. Spell it the girly way."
"Interesting name."
"Only if you've read the book. I figured if I went by 'Hudson Hawk' like I originally wanted to, I'd get too many weird looks."
"Only if they've seen the movie."
"True enough," she replied, chuckling. "So. Since you know my name, I can't really hit on you without not knowing yours....."
"Vincent. Vincent Brady."
"Well then, Vincent, Vincent Brady. What can I do ya for?"
Vincent smiled, shaking his head. He reminded himself that he should get the business reason for his trip out of the way before indulging in a little tropical pleasure.
"I'm here on behalf of my client, Clive Hastings. He's made some changes to his will and he wanted me to come down and notify you."
Jo sighed. The sorrow in that sound made Vincent think she hadn't been some woman on the side, but a genuine friend of Clive's. He may be the shady sort, from time to time, but Vincent always felt that Clive was truly a good man when you got down to it. Only the news of a good man coming to his end could elicit that look of grief that passed through Jo's eyes.
"Not in remission anymore?"
"No. Not anymore."
"How long?"
"If it takes it's time, he could have several years. If it becomes aggressive, like they think it will, nine months...maybe a year."
"A...that's it?"
"According to the doctors."
"Not always right, but not often wrong. And why does that bring my new lawyer shaped friend to my side of the Caribbean?"
Vincent took a file folder out of the briefcase on the stool next to him. His client had sent it with him, just in case 'Jo' had needed some convincing.
"Like I said, Clive's made a few changes to his will, and wanted you to know about it. The company, and most of everything else, is still going to his son and assorted family members. He has, however, made a list of several bank accounts and properties that will fall to you in the event of his death. On one condition."
"And that would be?"
"To quote Clive, he wants you to come back to the world before he dies."
His statement was met with a cool, even stare from Jo. She looked away after a moment, shifting her gaze to the ocean. She's got good cop face, he thought. He'd seen many similar ones from the faces of men he'd defended in criminal cases. It was a look that gave nothing away when you had something to hide. Vincent took a piece of paper out of the folder, on it was the sum total of what she stood to inherit and placed it in front of her to read.
"The place in Vermont? And...Elder Sister? As in over there, Elder Sister, Middle Sister, and Little Sister?"
"As in the three a few more islands to the southeast called The Three Sisters? From what I understand, Clive currently owns about eighty percent of the island. The estate house itself is rather lovely. Smacks of something straight out of a Hemingway novel."
"Son of a b*tch never told me that. And all I have to do is leave my little beachfront paradise for a visit back to the states, and it's all mine?"
"All yours."
She stared down at the list for a moment, jaw clenched, before pushing it away. Vincent watched it flutter down to the sand, hoping this encounter didn't take a turn for the worse.
"He could've just asked. Not dangle this in front of me. All he had to do was pick up a phone and say 'hey Delilah, the cancer's back, wanna come over for a burger and a beer'."
"Delilah?"
"No. Jo."
"Jo, then. He didn't think you'd come. Not in time, anyway. Clive is of the opinion you'd just agonize over it and end up missing his funeral. He said he just wanted to see his girl while he still could."
"Always the drama queen," she muttered, grinning once again at whatever memories that had been drawn out.
"He said to tell you it would be safe. You would be safe."
The grin wavered once again, pleasant memories being replaced with a different sort.
"I might be, but the world wouldn't. The world is much safer without me in it."
"He said you'd say something like that. He also said to tell you to quit being a silly little girl and just come back. You're not half the monster you think you are."
"Opinions and a**holes, Vincent, opinions and a**holes."
Vincent allowed himself to laugh at that while he took a stack of photos out of the folder. He placed them on the bar, picture sides down, and picked up the one on top. Vincent flipped it over and put it in front of Jo for her to look at. To say the woman in the photo had been brutally murdered would have been a gross understatement. Any case that would involve crime scene photos like this would have the words 'career-making' attached to it. Vincent watched Jo's face as she looked down at it, her jaw clenched, eyes filling with anger.
"That is what a monster does."
Another photo of another person that died hard. Very hard. The red-headed man's dead eyes stared out of the photo, looking as if they were still filled with fear and pain. Jo reached out to this one, touching the face with one shaking hand. She closed her eyes for a moment, taking several deep breaths. A third photo greeted her when she opened them again. This one was a picture of a piece of paper, with 'I'll be seeing Romeo soon....' written on it in red. Vincent had been told it was written with the victim's blood. The blood of a man named Peter Finnagan.
"As civilized as we'd like to believe we are, there are monsters out there that do things like this."
More photos followed those. A ruined, burned out mansion. Several more bodies, alternating between burned beyond all recognition and shot several times. Even a couple of what Clive had called 'death by grenade'. Vincent finally turned over the last photo, not expecting the somewhat wistful smile on Jo's face when she saw it. It was of a man, pinned to the ground by what looked like railroad spikes through his palms and feet. His face, although battered and bloody, looked like it could have belonged on a model or a movie star. His body, on the other hand, was a bloody ruin. He had been mostly skinned from the neck down. Mostly meaning the skin had been separated from his body on the front and left to drape on the ground like flesh-colored plastic wrap. Once that had been done, someone had proceeded to autopsy the man. While he was still alive, according to Clive.
"If you ask me, this is what happens to monsters when they terrorize the wrong person. Said person responds with righteous fury and terrible anger. This is vengeance wrought upon a man that truly deserved it."
"You sound very certain of that."
"I'm a defense attorney in my day job."
Jo laughed at that, grinning at him. She gathered the photos into a neat little stack and handed them back to Vincent.
"You for hire?"
"Actually, Clive mulled over adding my services to that list I showed you. Just in case you'd ever need them."
"I could think of a few...services I might need you for," Jo said with a suggestive purr in her voice. Vincent just gaped at her for a moment, both wondering and hoping if she was being serious. He decided to throw caution to the wind for a moment, wondering if a cheesy line would offend her or make her laugh.
"Well...if I said you had a nice body, would you hold it against me?"
She laughed after all, reaching for an empty pitcher and a jug of orange juice that she put on the bar in front of Vincent. She filled the pitcher half full with the juice, put it away and began selecting bottles from the booze selection behind the bar.
"Tell you what, ask me again after we get to the bottom of that. By then I'm sure I'll have plenty that I'll want to...hold against you."
"So can I call Clive and tell him you said yes?"
Silent, Jo thought it over while pouring a generous amount of rum into the oj. Trading the rum for some pineapple juice, she met Vincent's curious gaze with a grin.
"If you want. Or call him tomorrow, as long as you don't tell him how, or how many times I said yes to you."
"I'll just do it now. That way I won't be distracted from more...pressing matters at hand."
Jo laughed again, adding a splash of what looked to Vincent like everything behind the bar. The finished product looked much like the orange-red pitcher he'd seen earlier.
"Listen to you, mister flirty lawyer man. All with the double entendre," she said as she placed two glasses on the bar between them. He grinned back at her as he took a cellphone out of his briefcase.
"You're not so bad at it yourself, Jo."
"Like the song says, when I'm good, I'm very very good. But when I'm bad I'm better," she replies, pouring drinks for both of them. Jo held hers up in a toast, Vincent following her lead.
"To friends. Old and new."
"Hear, hear."
"Oh...and Vincent?"
"Yes?"
"It's Delilah. Call me Delilah."
Jacket in one hand, briefcase in the other, Vincent took his time strolling down the beach. A set of docks floated out on the water, a couple of boats were tied off there, two men fishing off the back of one. A third man was walking towards the two with a pitcher of something orange-red in his hands. He seemed to have come from what looked like a large hut on the beach. As Vincent drew closer he could see what in fact looked like an open-air bar of some sort. A bartender had their back to him, busy checking the stock. Further down the beach, a seaplane that looked like it was straight out of a war movie bobbed in the water.
Vincent guessed this must be the place. His client didn't have any actual address for this 'Joe Merchant' person he was supposed to find. He'd thought it strange at first, but once he got down here it'd made perfect sense. Every island down here was practically it's own little country. Duma Key, the Three Sisters, Lone Palm Key, Sawtooth Key and so on and so forth. Vincent floundered for a moment, drawing a blank to the name of the one he was on now. Caddy Key, he said to himself. On the other side of the island, where Vincent had arrived, the main landmark of interest was...well...a bar. It, like this one, sat on the beach outside of town. Outside of that, a very large, very pink caddy that probably had a twin in Elvis' garage, sat in the sand. If any customers wanted to, they could enjoy their food and drink in the car, admiring the view. The car in question had belonged to a much beloved mayor thirty or so years ago. He'd brought so-called 'civilization' to the Key. Electricity, tv and such. Vincent had been told that the only reason they had paved roads on the island was because of that pink Cadillac. The locals renamed the island Caddy Key and made that mayor a folk hero. All because of a giant pink car.
Trippy, Vincent said to himself with a grin.
Silently cursing the wingtips he was wearing, Vincent trudged across the sand and took a seat on one of the stools in front of the bar. He gave the still busy bartender the once-over, guessing she was a woman. Definitely looks like a girl from this angle, he thought, admiring the view. Tanned and lean, she had long red hair tied back in a ponytail. The bikini top and shorts she was wearing did nothing to hide several tattoos and some fairly ugly scars. On her lower back, just above the waistband of her shorts, was a tattoo of an etch-a-sketch. He stared at it, wondering just why someone would have a tattoo like that. She disappeared into the shack for a moment, coming back out with a bottle of rum in each hand.
"Y' want something to drink? I've been told that starin' at my ass is thirsty work."
Vincent just stared at her for a moment, taken off guard by the attractive and somewhat crude girl before him. She was clearly enjoying his shock, judging by the satisfied grin on her face. Amusement glittered in her hazel eyes. His mind raced back over everything his client had told him about her. A crazy thought of Do her eyes smile at you like that over the barrel of a gun flickered in the back of his mind before he squashed it down.
"A beer of some kind, I suppose. Unless you can recommend something fruity?"
She set the bottles down on the bar and gave him an appraising look of her own. Still grinning, she turned her back on him and made a show of bending over to get a bottle of beer out of a cooler underneath the bar. She set it down in front of him, casually propping her elbows on the bar and leaning forward slightly. When Vincent, being male after all, glanced past his beer at her cleavage, she began to laugh.
"I make a mean liquid cocaine, but you just don't seem the fruity type."
"No man could be the fruity type when presented with that," Vincent replied, laughing as well.
"So, Joe Merchant, I presume?"
"J-O. Just Jo. Spell it the girly way."
"Interesting name."
"Only if you've read the book. I figured if I went by 'Hudson Hawk' like I originally wanted to, I'd get too many weird looks."
"Only if they've seen the movie."
"True enough," she replied, chuckling. "So. Since you know my name, I can't really hit on you without not knowing yours....."
"Vincent. Vincent Brady."
"Well then, Vincent, Vincent Brady. What can I do ya for?"
Vincent smiled, shaking his head. He reminded himself that he should get the business reason for his trip out of the way before indulging in a little tropical pleasure.
"I'm here on behalf of my client, Clive Hastings. He's made some changes to his will and he wanted me to come down and notify you."
Jo sighed. The sorrow in that sound made Vincent think she hadn't been some woman on the side, but a genuine friend of Clive's. He may be the shady sort, from time to time, but Vincent always felt that Clive was truly a good man when you got down to it. Only the news of a good man coming to his end could elicit that look of grief that passed through Jo's eyes.
"Not in remission anymore?"
"No. Not anymore."
"How long?"
"If it takes it's time, he could have several years. If it becomes aggressive, like they think it will, nine months...maybe a year."
"A...that's it?"
"According to the doctors."
"Not always right, but not often wrong. And why does that bring my new lawyer shaped friend to my side of the Caribbean?"
Vincent took a file folder out of the briefcase on the stool next to him. His client had sent it with him, just in case 'Jo' had needed some convincing.
"Like I said, Clive's made a few changes to his will, and wanted you to know about it. The company, and most of everything else, is still going to his son and assorted family members. He has, however, made a list of several bank accounts and properties that will fall to you in the event of his death. On one condition."
"And that would be?"
"To quote Clive, he wants you to come back to the world before he dies."
His statement was met with a cool, even stare from Jo. She looked away after a moment, shifting her gaze to the ocean. She's got good cop face, he thought. He'd seen many similar ones from the faces of men he'd defended in criminal cases. It was a look that gave nothing away when you had something to hide. Vincent took a piece of paper out of the folder, on it was the sum total of what she stood to inherit and placed it in front of her to read.
"The place in Vermont? And...Elder Sister? As in over there, Elder Sister, Middle Sister, and Little Sister?"
"As in the three a few more islands to the southeast called The Three Sisters? From what I understand, Clive currently owns about eighty percent of the island. The estate house itself is rather lovely. Smacks of something straight out of a Hemingway novel."
"Son of a b*tch never told me that. And all I have to do is leave my little beachfront paradise for a visit back to the states, and it's all mine?"
"All yours."
She stared down at the list for a moment, jaw clenched, before pushing it away. Vincent watched it flutter down to the sand, hoping this encounter didn't take a turn for the worse.
"He could've just asked. Not dangle this in front of me. All he had to do was pick up a phone and say 'hey Delilah, the cancer's back, wanna come over for a burger and a beer'."
"Delilah?"
"No. Jo."
"Jo, then. He didn't think you'd come. Not in time, anyway. Clive is of the opinion you'd just agonize over it and end up missing his funeral. He said he just wanted to see his girl while he still could."
"Always the drama queen," she muttered, grinning once again at whatever memories that had been drawn out.
"He said to tell you it would be safe. You would be safe."
The grin wavered once again, pleasant memories being replaced with a different sort.
"I might be, but the world wouldn't. The world is much safer without me in it."
"He said you'd say something like that. He also said to tell you to quit being a silly little girl and just come back. You're not half the monster you think you are."
"Opinions and a**holes, Vincent, opinions and a**holes."
Vincent allowed himself to laugh at that while he took a stack of photos out of the folder. He placed them on the bar, picture sides down, and picked up the one on top. Vincent flipped it over and put it in front of Jo for her to look at. To say the woman in the photo had been brutally murdered would have been a gross understatement. Any case that would involve crime scene photos like this would have the words 'career-making' attached to it. Vincent watched Jo's face as she looked down at it, her jaw clenched, eyes filling with anger.
"That is what a monster does."
Another photo of another person that died hard. Very hard. The red-headed man's dead eyes stared out of the photo, looking as if they were still filled with fear and pain. Jo reached out to this one, touching the face with one shaking hand. She closed her eyes for a moment, taking several deep breaths. A third photo greeted her when she opened them again. This one was a picture of a piece of paper, with 'I'll be seeing Romeo soon....' written on it in red. Vincent had been told it was written with the victim's blood. The blood of a man named Peter Finnagan.
"As civilized as we'd like to believe we are, there are monsters out there that do things like this."
More photos followed those. A ruined, burned out mansion. Several more bodies, alternating between burned beyond all recognition and shot several times. Even a couple of what Clive had called 'death by grenade'. Vincent finally turned over the last photo, not expecting the somewhat wistful smile on Jo's face when she saw it. It was of a man, pinned to the ground by what looked like railroad spikes through his palms and feet. His face, although battered and bloody, looked like it could have belonged on a model or a movie star. His body, on the other hand, was a bloody ruin. He had been mostly skinned from the neck down. Mostly meaning the skin had been separated from his body on the front and left to drape on the ground like flesh-colored plastic wrap. Once that had been done, someone had proceeded to autopsy the man. While he was still alive, according to Clive.
"If you ask me, this is what happens to monsters when they terrorize the wrong person. Said person responds with righteous fury and terrible anger. This is vengeance wrought upon a man that truly deserved it."
"You sound very certain of that."
"I'm a defense attorney in my day job."
Jo laughed at that, grinning at him. She gathered the photos into a neat little stack and handed them back to Vincent.
"You for hire?"
"Actually, Clive mulled over adding my services to that list I showed you. Just in case you'd ever need them."
"I could think of a few...services I might need you for," Jo said with a suggestive purr in her voice. Vincent just gaped at her for a moment, both wondering and hoping if she was being serious. He decided to throw caution to the wind for a moment, wondering if a cheesy line would offend her or make her laugh.
"Well...if I said you had a nice body, would you hold it against me?"
She laughed after all, reaching for an empty pitcher and a jug of orange juice that she put on the bar in front of Vincent. She filled the pitcher half full with the juice, put it away and began selecting bottles from the booze selection behind the bar.
"Tell you what, ask me again after we get to the bottom of that. By then I'm sure I'll have plenty that I'll want to...hold against you."
"So can I call Clive and tell him you said yes?"
Silent, Jo thought it over while pouring a generous amount of rum into the oj. Trading the rum for some pineapple juice, she met Vincent's curious gaze with a grin.
"If you want. Or call him tomorrow, as long as you don't tell him how, or how many times I said yes to you."
"I'll just do it now. That way I won't be distracted from more...pressing matters at hand."
Jo laughed again, adding a splash of what looked to Vincent like everything behind the bar. The finished product looked much like the orange-red pitcher he'd seen earlier.
"Listen to you, mister flirty lawyer man. All with the double entendre," she said as she placed two glasses on the bar between them. He grinned back at her as he took a cellphone out of his briefcase.
"You're not so bad at it yourself, Jo."
"Like the song says, when I'm good, I'm very very good. But when I'm bad I'm better," she replies, pouring drinks for both of them. Jo held hers up in a toast, Vincent following her lead.
"To friends. Old and new."
"Hear, hear."
"Oh...and Vincent?"
"Yes?"
"It's Delilah. Call me Delilah."
