Running Deep, Saints Row fic (part 3)
Jan. 22nd, 2015 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlofpreyTitle: Running Deep
Fandom: Saints Row series (video game)
Disclaimer: I don't own the Saints Row universe and I'm not making any money off this.
Part 1
Part 2
18.
The only saving grace of the airport situation was that things were quiet, for a while. Maybe the Saints had some shame. Maybe they were taking a break after wiping out the Carnales. Or maybe they were gearing up to go after King.
But there were plenty of downsides. An entire month’s worth of meetings and conferences had to be scrapped, because there was no way to get the delegates in or their own executives out. Even if they were willing to use the city’s ferry services, the whole routes were packed to bursting. Leaving the city, anyway – but they could hardly bring delegates in without giving them a way to leave.
They rearranged the most important meetings into conference calls, and tried to arrange private transport by boat. Besides that, they had staff members who were out of town when the explosion happened, and they had to arrange cover for them until they could make it back into the city. Happily, the people who were still in the city really did want to work. Or to distract themselves. Either way, it worked out.
Ultor should build a helipad on the roof of the office, Dane thought, when they had the funds again. It was an expense – plus the running of a helicopter – but contingency plans were apparently very valuable in Stilwater. Maybe they could do a deal with the airport.
The off the books ‘deliveries’ stopped. There was barely any stock coming in, and now things were calmer in the South of the city it wasn’t worth the risk of exposure. Darcy took the news gracefully, as though the money meant nothing to her. She was quiet for a few of their lunches though.
Dane told his superiors what he could about what was going on in the city, leaving his specific sources out of it. They didn’t want to hear it – didn’t really believe it would come to that. And maybe they were right – the Saints had had a good run, but Ben King had friends in the police department and City Hall, so maybe they wouldn’t last long against him. But hadn’t they thought that when they first rose up in Saints Row? So Dane told them anyway. He suggested they hire extra security for the stores Downtown and in the Retail district, and for the offices, and do whatever they could to get the suburbs and South island stores back on their feet, quickly. They might be carrying Ultor through what came next.
The Vice Kings didn’t go for a pre-emptive strike, which Dane felt was to their credit. They certainly held themselves a little more classily than the Saints. Or maybe it was inaction on Ben King’s part – maybe it was time for a change in management. Whatever the reason, it gave Ultor plenty of time to prepare.
The first warning sign of things heating up again, as usual, came from Darcy. She came to one of their lunches edgy than usual, clenching and unclenching her fists.
“What’s wrong?” Dane asked, lowly, over his menu.
She met his eyes, looking furious. But shook her head, looking away again.
A few weeks later, Ben King’s record studio blew up, killing Aisha. Dane could see the smoke from his window when he got home that night.
The city took Aisha’s death hard, for some reason. She wasn’t exactly a pillar of the community but – she’d meant something to Stilwater. The girl from the slums gone good. Proof that you could get off of the streets, sometimes. The level of public mourning was intense. Kingdom Come records announced they were putting out a memorial boxset – Dane was privately impressed.
Some people were upset for different reasons. To them, Aisha’s death meant even thugs from the Row weren’t safe. So how could they be? Other people said she’d probably been a mole for the Vice Kings, and the Saints had blown up the building to get to her, not the other way around. But whatever way they thought of it, everyone knew what was coming. Again.
It didn’t take long. There was fighting in the Red Light district – it didn’t mean much to most people, except those who suddenly had nothing to do on a Saturday night, but Dane knew it was where the borders began. Not just the borders – a huge lynchpin of the Vice Kings’ operations.
Darcy was furious at their next lunch. Blindingly, chokingly furious. She was friends with a lot of hookers, he knew.
There was a full-on shootout in a brothel, eventually. Then another. Then another. Then another. All in the same brothel. It was a desirable location, apparently. He wasn’t sure how many customers they’d have after that, though. As a business proposition it probably wasn’t even worth the ammunition. But there was more to it than money, of course.
Then there was some fight in the Projects. That didn’t even get as much airplay at the Red Light district – not enough sleaze – but apparently someone high up in the Saints got killed. Things went quiet again, for a little while.
Ben King didn’t hit back at the Saints, and he could’ve, especially with his contacts. He seemed more concerned with rebuilding his studio, and networking at City Hall. Dane didn’t know whether to be impressed with the man or exasperated. But he couldn’t exactly blame the man if he wanted to be a genuine businessman, not just a criminal in a fancy suit.
But it meant that the Saints survived. He started noticing more and more purple on the streets when he drove to work, or walked around with Darcy. He also noticed she walked a little closer to him than before.
Dane tried to impress on his superiors that the violence would be coming back to the North island, that the attack on Kingdom Come records wasn’t just a one-off. He tried to convince them the Saints were already here. They were in a better position than they had been a few months ago – Wardill was almost running at full capacity again, they had plenty of stock coming in, and their support in its rebuilding effort meant there was a unit in a prime location just waiting for them when it opened fully again, in what was now one of the most secure areas in the city. And thanks to Dane’s tireless work, their peripheral stores were stable again, and turning a healthy profit.
They had to take advantage of that. His bosses were still dubious, but a few police reports convinced them. They switched some security around from the suburban and Southeast stores to the central ones – happily, they had a lot of veterans working for them now.
Just in time. Later that week, there was an attack at a set of condos, not far from where Dane lived. Or worked. It was over almost as soon as it had begun, but a lot of Ultor’s people didn’t come into work the following day. And not just clerks, his colleagues, people he was forced to consider his peers. It was goddamn unprofessional. But on the other hand, his bosses were giving him that look he loved – that ‘you talented son of a bitch’ look. That ‘we can’t ignore you any longer’ look.
He heard gunshots as he was driving home that night. Not long after he got in, he got a call. From Darcy.
“Hey,” she said. “Let me up.”
He frowned.
“Up – where?”
She couldn’t be…
“Into your apartment,” she said impatiently.
“Darcy – you can’t just come around whenever you feel like it – ”
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Let me up!”
He took a deep breath. Centred himself.
“I’ll call the doorman,” he said, an attempt at pacification, and hung up the phone.
He had been trying to get her up her for months, he supposed. And maybe she needed his help. Maybe she was in trouble.
He told the doorman to buzz her up, and waited for the knock. He only had to wait a few minutes. He opened the door to her looking very angry. She walked in without saying anything, and kicked off her shoes. He realised at some point she’d switched from trainers to combat boots.
She stalked down into the main room.
“Can you shoot?” she asked, as he followed her in.
He blinked at her.
“What?”
“Can you shoot?” she replied, like he was slow.
“I – what? Darcy…”
“Don’t fuck around, Dane! Can you shoot?”
He stared at her. She was standing, arms spread slightly, like she wanted a fight. And she was apparently angry at him.
He folded his arms.
“Yeah,” he said. “I took a few lessons with Ultor when I first joined up.”
She scowled at him. Then she reached behind her, to her waistband – no – and pulled out a goddamned gun.
She held it out to him, grip first.
“Show me,” she said.
He slapped it away.
“What the fuck are you doing, Darcy?!” he hissed. He stared at her. Her eyes were hard, impenetrable.
“What are you gonna do if someone attacks you, Dane?” she demanded. “What are you gonna do if someone comes up here? Tell me!”
“No-one’s coming up here –”
“You don’t know! No-one knows!”
He clenched his jaw, and pointed at the gun still in her hand.
“Is that thing even licensed? You brought it up to my goddamn apartment – !”
“You think this place is safe? You think I’m the only one who can find it?!”
He put his hands over his face. She was breathing hard. She wasn’t being rational right now. He knew she wasn’t.
“Darcy,” he said, calmly, raising his head and looking her in the eyes. “This isn’t Saints Row.”
She just stared at him for a second. Then screwed up her face in a sneer.
“If this was Saints Row, you’d be dead,” she said. She readjusted her stance, the gun swinging in her hand. For a moment her eyes looked bright. Almost wet. “You wanna die? Fine! Don’t ask me to come to your fucking funeral!”
She stormed out past him, not touching him. He heard the front door slam.
He put his head down and closed his eyes.
Jesus.
He looked up, round at the door she’d left through. Then he laughed, quietly. Then he headed down to his office to do some paperwork.
19.
He got a promotion. Due to his uncanny understanding of where trouble was coming from next. It was a lot of trust, and he was planning to do plenty with it.
He hadn’t mentioned where a lot of his ‘uncanny understanding’ came from, and he wasn’t sure that’d be much of a source in the future. But he had his other contacts. He’d manage.
He got a new office, and a driver rather than a company car. That certainly made his drive to and from the office a lot more productive.
He occasionally got weird chills as he came in and out of work, though. His driver, Matthew, didn’t seem to notice anything. So he put it down to adrenaline from the new promotion, and the current situation.
About a week after his promotion, there a major incident in the city. Two maniacs shot up the Retail district. They killed a couple of shop clerks, blew up an art installation, and bulldozed Alderman Hughes’ statue. Which would cost everyone a pretty penny.
It knocked the business district for a loop. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen here. Even more confusing, the maniacs in question were Vice Kings, which didn’t make any goddamn sense, because this was their turf. So now no-one knew what was going on. Maybe they were sick of the gang wars. Or sick of Ben King doing nothing and leaving his people to hang. Or maybe he’d done something to upset them personally. Either way, the Police Chief Monroe finally had to go on the news and promise to do something about the out-of-control Vice Kings.
That’d make things chilly between him and Ben King.
Later reports of the news revealed that the rampage had actually started in Saints Row. Which – which made more sense. The two Kings had apparently just started firing on civilians. Then led the police a merry dance into their own territory, and gone to town. Maybe they were high. Who knew?
He didn’t call.
No Ultor stores were hit. The staff were shaken, but more angry – the resilience of the privileged. Dane ordered them to close the store as a sign of respect – they wouldn’t have much passing trade in the next few days anyway, or much luck with traffic as the clean-up crews worked, and it would look good to the public.
Which left him just trying to figure out what would happen next. Were King’s people snapping? Or going rogue? Or had he ordered this, in a sudden, wild change of heart? He didn’t seem very sudden or wild to Dane, but if he had, the situation had backfired on him. It had probably worked out better for the Saints, unless they really did care about the people in their neighbourhood. A lot of the residents that were left were probably more ready to sign up with the Saints though. For revenge.
Chief Monroe was as good as his word, and the following days included a number of high profile Vice King arrests. Not the highest profile one, of course. Maybe this was King’s plan all along – to get out of his own gang by getting the rest of them killed or arrested.
Dane figured he’d probably never be able to ask Darcy again. If she was even alive. The way she’d left seemed – pretty final, if he wasn’t going to do what she wanted. And he wasn’t. And neither was he going to call and try to smooth things over, and imply that sort of behaviour was in any way okay. He got Sharks tickets sent to his office – he had a standing order on them now. He put them in his desk drawer, and cancelled it.
He caught one of his co-workers crying in the bathroom. He dried his hands and ignored her. They had work to do.
~ ~ ~
A few weeks later, things went a little more properly to hell. Kingdom Come records studio got blown up again – you’d think they’d be sick of doing that. And then, Ben King went missing.
Went missing. No-one knew where he was, or where he might be. Dane’s police contacts seemed genuinely at a loss, rather than tight-lipped. There was some word about a gunfight at a museum – a museum now overrun with people decked out in purple – but after that, nothing.
The Vice Kings were still on the streets, though. And they were more violent than ever. Gunfights just opened up, in the business district, in the high street. In broad daylight. Wherever the Kings and Saints met, apparently. Either they were all going rogue, or whoever was in charge of things now had finally taken the Kings off the leash.
Everyone panicked. Quietly and hysterically. And not just because streets that had always been quiet before had suddenly lit up – because everyone knew who Ben King was, everyone knew what he was, no matter how close he got with City Hall. They knew he was running the Vice Kings, and they probably, deep down, thought he was the one who was gonna stop the Saints, and get things back to normal.
And now he was gone. And the Kings and Saints were going at each other. And no-one knew what was going to happen.
Dane scrambled to keep things under control. Extra security, more security for the stock in transit, back-up cover for the Retail stores, in case the staff there couldn’t handle it anymore. He hired a couple more PTSD counsellors. Wardill airport reopened, and he talked about what a good thing it was, what a great thing for the city, how things could start running as normal again.
They hadn’t finished the helipad on the roof.
They started getting reports about a number of stores in Nob Hill burning to the ground, the staff seemingly executed. Dane couldn’t understand it at all, until he realised it was along the borders of Saints and Kings territory, where a yellow neighbourhood was about to changes hands, and then he realised – the Kings were burning their assets. Gutting them, before the Saints could get hold of them.
He wanted to laugh. In the privacy of his office, he did laugh.
Business was brutal.
He did what he could. Organised extra security for their own stores. Anything less than a private army wasn’t going to help. One of the stores fell anyway. Rebuilding it would be – costly.
He wished he could talk to Darcy about it. She was a great sounding board. She just listened, and didn’t care.
She probably wouldn’t have let him, though. It was gang business now.
He infrequently hired escorts, just to blow off some steam. The women he saw now seemed – frightened. He thought about Madam Wu’s and wondered if anyone was looking out for them.
The police were cracking down on the Vice Kings more and more every day, and practically ignoring the Saints, who were pushing them back. Whoever was in charge of the Vice Kings now was not Ben King. It would probably be over soon. Right?
20.
He started getting those chills more and more, when he left work or his building. Sometimes when he was coming home and got out of his car, he’d swear he saw the shadows across the street move.
He was genuinely concerned at first. Until it occurred to him what it might be.
He called Darcy one evening after work, in the main room, a glass of scotch in his other hand.
She picked up.
“I told you not to call me.” She sounded tired, but not particularly angry.
He smiled.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
A short breath on the other end of the line.
“Watching a Sharks game,” she said. “I’m here with all my friends. There’s Elvis, and Mayor Winslow…Richard Hughes had to cancel when he heard Winslow was coming…”
He smiled again, resting his head against the phone.
“Come up,” he said.
A pause.
“Where?” she asked.
“To the apartment.”
Another pause.
“I know you’re down there, Darcy. You can watch the door better from up here. And it’s warmer.”
Another pause. Then he heard a muttered curse, and the line cut off.
He buzzed the doorman.
She looked annoyed when he opened the door to her. And – not exactly sheepish, but like she might possibly be able to imagine what that emotion would feel like.
He gestured her to come in. She kicked off her boots and wandered down the hall to the main room.
When he followed her in she was stood stock still, looking around like she was assessing the place, even though she’d been here before.
“Drink?” he asked. She turned and nodded. Then walked over and flopped down on a couch.
He handed her the drink, and sat on the other couch.
“So how’ve you been?” he asked, pleasantly.
She shot him a sarcastic look.
“Fantastic,” she said. “How’ve you been?”
As if she didn’t know.
“I got a promotion,” he said, taking a sip of his drink.
She rolled her eyes, looking at the wall.
“No congratulations?”
“You usually do,” she said.
She looked back at him.
“How’s work?”
He considered the answer.
“People are scared,” he finally said. She gave him a look that suggested those people were a lot smarter than he was, and then went back to looking at the wall.
“What happened on Saints Row?” he asked. She looked at him sharply. “When the Vice Kings attacked.”
Her face twisted up, fingers tightening on the glass, white-knuckled.
“It was Gat,” she said, and took a hit of scotch.
He blinked at her for a second.
“What – Johnny Gat?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
Except he knew – he knew why. To make the Vice Kings look bad. He’d almost thought at the time.
Jesus.
“So people would think the Vice Kings did it,” she answered. “Worked.”
“And they just opened fire on Saints Row?”
Her fingers tightened a little more on the glass. Any more and it’d fracture. She nodded.
“Anyone you know?” he asked, watching her.
“I know a lot of people,” she said, and threw back the rest of her scotch.
“Your cousin? Dad?”
She twitched, still not meeting his eyes.
“My cousin’s dead,” she said.
“What, in the attack?”
“No,” she said. “When the Carnales attacked a few months ago. He got hit by a car.”
Dane stared at her.
“You never said.”
She shrugged.
“People die.”
Things were quiet for a second.
“What about your dad?”
She gave him that warning look she always did whenever he brought up her dad. He didn’t know why she didn’t want to talk about him – she seemed perfectly affectionate when she did.
“He’s fine,” she muttered.
There was an awkward pause.
“When the Saints win,” Dane said, “will things calm down again?”
Her eyes slid over to his. She just held them for a moment.
“Probably,” she said. She tapped her fingers on her glass. “Until the next asshole decides they want to run things instead.”
The silence stretched out for a few minutes this time.
“Where are you staying right now?” Dane asked.
She shrugged.
“I’ve got a car.”
“What does that mean?”
“That if push comes to shove, I can sleep in my car.”
Jesus. It was winter – it’d been below freezing some nights this week.
“Can you afford to run the engine all night?”
She gave him a hard look.
“I’m fine.”
He sighed.
“Are things quiet on Saints Row, at least? Now?”
Another of those hard, wary looks.
“Yeah,” she said. “The actual Vice Kings haven’t come after us yet.”
Her hand twisted on the glass again.
“How did you know it was Gat?”
“I know how he holds a gun.”
He watched her for a moment. She was staring off into space, brow knitted. Lost in thought. Or memories.
He looked around his high class, expensively furnished, pristine apartment. And then back at her.
“You can stay here,” he said. “If you have nowhere else.”
She went tense and still, because this was a big deal, but also because he’d been right, you could watch the door better from up here, and she didn’t want to leave. He knew she wouldn’t. Which meant she’d probably stay, which meant this was essentially just his decision, and Christ he was fucking himself. Seeing her every now and then was one thing. Letting her stay was another.
But the fact was, he liked Darcy. He liked having her around. He wanted to have her around.
“Alright,” she said, finally. Her shoulders slumped, like she was somehow defeated. Maybe she’d lost a fight with herself. She started openly looking around the apartment. Where she’d be staying.
He found he’d been holding his breath.
“D’you want another drink?” he asked, gesturing her empty glass. She looked down at like she’d forgotten it was there, and nodded, holding it out.
He went back into the kitchenette. He was spending – a lot of time in his life with a young psychopath. But then, if she wasn’t in here, she’d only be across the street anyway.
Sirens wailed faintly outside his window, which they shouldn’t have done because he’d paid for noise-cancelling glass. It suddenly occurred to him that Darcy had essentially grown up in a warzone, and now that it had calmed down – barring the odd attack from its own ranks – she wanted to be up here, on the front lines, with him.
She was still looking around the apartment. She didn’t seem bothered by the sirens at all.
He came back over and handed her the drink, sitting back down.
“Do you know what happened to Ben King?” he asked. It was one of the things he was genuinely curious about.
Darcy went tense again for a moment, and then shrugged uncomfortably. She had a drink.
“I think he’s on the Row,” she said.
Dane did a small double-take.
“What, Saints Row?”
She nodded.
“Some people said they saw a beat-up car speeding around the night he disappeared, that stopped outside the Church. They said a guy got out, looking just like him. Went inside.”
“Wait, what church?”
“The Saints’ church.”
“They have a church? What are they, a cult?”
“No,” she said, smiling slightly. “They work out of an old church. Abandoned, you know. Cuz they’re the ‘Saints’, or whatever.”
Dane thought that over.
“That’s ridiculous,” he concluded. She nodded. “And wait, people just know about it? Everyone knows about it?”
“Well, not everyone. People on the Row do.”
“And Ben King?”
“Well – the gangs do, yeah.”
“So why don’t people just attack the Church?”
“They do. What do you think they’re always trying to blow up?”
Silence, while he pondered that for a moment.
“Do the police know about it?” They were good friends with King, of course. Or had been.
She shrugged, having another drink.
“Probably.”
“So why don’t they arrest them?”
She smiled at him.
“The police don’t care, Dane. They don’t care about anything if it’s not on the news.”
They were quiet again.
He thought for a moment.
“Do you know who’s in charge of the Vice Kings now?”
The smile dropped off her face again. She stared down into her scotch, grimacing.
“No,” she said. “But they’re clearly some sort of asshole.” She threw back another mouthful.
Silence again.
“The spare room’s made up,” he said. It always was, in case he had unexpected stopovers. She nodded her thanks.
21.
He tried to be quiet the next morning. But she still ended up hanging out in the hallway, glaring at him as he went for his early morning swim.
“I’m just going down to the pool,” he said. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
She frowned, and looked like she wanted to come with him. But she didn’t say anything, holding herself rigid in the doorway. Then she turned and went into the main room.
He came back, showered, and put on his suit. When he came out into the kitchenette she was sat at the counter, glaring at him. Like a housecat that didn’t want him to leave for work. She didn’t want him to go for a different reason, of course.
He got out his usual breakfast of muesli and grapefruit juice, ignoring the perplexed frown Darcy was giving it. He sat down to eat. He could feel her glaring at him, eyeing his suit.
“You can’t follow me to work, Darcy,” he said.
She scowled down at the marble countertop.
“I know you’re worried,” he said. “But panicking’s the worst thing we could do right now.”
She looked him square in the eyes.
“Dying’s the worst thing you could do.”
“I’m going to be fine, Darcy. It’s a short drive, and it’s not that dangerous between here and there – you know that. We’ve been having more trouble at the stores than the offices. Don’t follow me. Please.”
She continued to glare down at the countertop. But she nodded.
Dane sighed a little in relief.
“If you want to leave, use the side entrance. I’ve spoken to the doorman, he’ll let you in and out. Please don’t hang around in the lobby or talk to any of my neighbours.”
She was frowning at his muesli again.
“What’s to eat?”
Well – damn. Nothing she’d enjoy, probably.
He thought for a moment.
“There’s a red box in the desk of my study, third drawer down. The key’s in the aspirin bottle in my medicine cabinet. It’s just petty cash, about a hundred dollars. You can go and buy whatever you want, or get takeaway, whatever.”
She nodded shortly, not meeting his eyes. He looked at her, sitting there in his pristine apartment.
He sighed.
~ ~ ~
He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t on his mind all day, but he just got on with his work, even so. He didn’t get any calls from the owner of the building or see anything on the news, so he figured things were okay.
On his drive home, he saw someone get knifed in an alleyway. He decided not to mention it to Darcy.
On reflection, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised to come home and find his apartment stinking of weed.
He walked into the main room to see Darcy sat on the couch, in a bathrobe, feet propped up on the table, smoking a blunt right there and then.
“Are you capable,” he asked, “of coming to my apartment without something incredibly illegal?”
She took a long drag on the cigarette.
“You get a lot of raids on this place, Danny boy?” she asked, blowing out the smoke.
He sighed, and headed down to his room to get changed.
He put on some casual clothes he didn’t wear very often, and put his suit aside to be dry-cleaned, just in case.
He came back into the main room. The smoke made his eyes water. He tried not to cough. He poured himself a scotch, although he figured he wouldn’t need as much of it tonight.
The big TV was on. The news was playing, on silent. Only stuff they’d seen before.
He walked back to the couch and sat down. Her feet were still up on the coffee table, and got his first look at the tattoos on her legs. They were pretty nice, actually. Vivid. Detailed.
“Why are you in a bathrobe?” he asked. It was a guest one, at least.
She shrugged.
“Figured I’d wash my clothes, while I’m here,” she said. “Don’t always have chance at a washing machine.” Her eyes slid over to his. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He shook his head. Thought for a minute. He wasn’t sure where his washing machine actually was.
She went back to watching the news.
“Your housekeeper’s nice,” she said, off-hand.
He’d forgotten about her. Wondered if she’d gotten a shock when she saw Darcy there today.
“You didn’t scare her off, did you?”
“Nah. It was nice to have the company.”
He wondered what Darcy had told her.
She took another drag on the cigarette. Dane watched her, probably looking unimpressed. She caught him, smiled, and when she was done, she held it out to him. Grinning at him.
She obviously didn’t expect him to take it. She was just teasing him, again.
He held her gaze for a second. Then he reached out and took it from her fingers, a little carefully. Her grin widened.
It’s not like he didn’t know people who did it in college. Most of the people in his hall, in fact, although he’d always turned his nose up. But people paid thousands of dollars a year for this stuff. There must be something good about it.
Darcy was still grinning, watching him. He put it to his lips like a cigar, and drew in a breath, tried to hold it like she did. Then started coughing.
“Jesus,” he said, passing it back to her. “People actually enjoy that stuff?”
She was chuckling, taking the blunt back.
“It takes a little getting used to,” she said. “This is primo stuff – might have been a little strong for you.”
He sat back on the couch, just about over the coughing. He wanted to have a drink of scotch, but that would probably just make things worse.
“Did you order it in?”
She gave him a mock-offended look.
“No!” she said. “Like I’m gonna bring some drug dealer up here.”
She went back to watching the news. Her eyes slightly narrowed. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea for her to have had something relaxing.
They sat in silence for a little while, watching. He suddenly realised he was hungry, and genuinely wondered if he had the munchies for a split second, before he realised he’d skipped dinner at the office while he was working late.
He got up to look for something in the fridge.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
He looked up. She was nodding, watching him. He went back to the fridge. There was some halibut from the weekend, still.
He heard her get up.
“Gonna go see if the clothes are dry,” she said.
He switched on the grill.
The oil was sizzling, the smell of cooking fish filling the air and chasing away the other smell, when Darcy came back in and he discovered she had no problems wandering around other people’s houses half-naked.
“Jesus, Darcy!” He almost turned to face the wall – settled for staring up at the ceiling. She was just wearing her bra and jeans.
“Calm down, Dane,” she said. “Just pretend it’s a bikini. My shirt’s still wet.”
He huffed, and looked down. She was indeed still there, in just her bra. She didn’t seem at all perturbed by the situation.
“Can’t wear the robe over it?”
“Over jeans? No. It won’t be long. Another fifteen minutes.”
He continued to stare at her. If this was going to turn into a come-on, after all this time, he was going to be annoyed.
It didn’t turn into a come-on. She looked no more romantic than he felt. She turned to grab a glass from the cupboard.
He glared at her back as she crossed to the tap.
She really did have a lot of tattoos.
The one of the black woman with a katana slung over her shoulder was probably the most striking, but another one caught his eye. Over by the seam of her right arm, just over the band of the bra, were a little set of faces. By the iconography, he’d say they were Catholic saints – one of them seemed to be being crucified. They were done up in all sorts of colours, but underneath was another line of faces, in black and white, almost photorealistic.
“Are you religious?” he asked. Surprising himself. He wasn’t usually that blunt. Maybe it was the weed.
She stiffened.
“What?” she said.
“The tattoo,” he said. “Are they saints?”
She turned quickly, so he couldn’t see it anymore. She stared at him, her eyes hard, but red-rimmed.
The tattoos under her collarbone, that he could never quite see for the straps of her vests, turned out to be a medal saying ‘daddy’ on one side, and a set of wheels with ‘mom’ in the rims on the other.
She stared at him for a long moment, looking a little uncertain. She seemed to be studying him.
“I didn’t know you were religious,” he offered. “That’s all.”
She stared at him for another moment – and then relaxed. Sort of.
“I’m not,” she said, finally. Watching him. “My dad used to take me sometimes. I got that a long time ago – I thought it was appropriate.”
He studied her.
“For Saints Row?”
She nodded.
“Who are they?”
She looked at him again, assessing.
“There’s St Margaret of Antioch,” she said. Challengingly. “For pregnant women. St Dismas, for thieves. St Callistus I – he’s for cemeteries.” She held his eyes hard. “St Andrew Corsini is for riots. And St Adjutor is for people like you – swimmers.”
He gave her a sarcastic smile. She smiled, a little, back.
“What about the people underneath?”
The smile dropped off her face. Silence.
Dane turned back to his grill. It didn’t need adjusting, but he turned some of the knobs anyway.
“What about the woman?” he said, as though nothing was wrong. “She an ex?”
“What woman?” She sounded a little off.
“The one with the sword.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s Samurai Jodie. Didn’t you watch Samurai Jodie when you were a kid?”
She sounded a little forced, but also genuinely disbelieving. He turned back around to her.
“Samurai Jodie?” he said. “No. I guess it didn’t make it out to California.”
“It was the best kids show ever,” she said. “She’s the reason I wanted to learn the katana.”
“You can use a katana? Did your dad teach you that too?”
“No – it was a guy on my block. I stopped him from getting robbed one time. He gave me lessons. We used to have tea and stuff.”
“A guy? Was he any good?”
“Yeah. His name was Rokuro, he ran a Brass Knuckles. He was great – said I was good too. He said I was ‘single-minded’.”
Dane wondered what that was a euphemism for. He wondered if she was actually any good, or just scary enough that the guy didn’t want to upset her.
“He was Japanese?”
“Yeah. He used to tell me about Japan sometimes. Nice guy, considering.”
“Considering…?”
“Considering most of the people on the Row.”
Huh. He’d thought she knew a weird amount about Japan when he told her about his time in Tokyo.
His fish was done. She went to check on her clothes again. When she came back, she was wearing a t-shirt, happily.
He sat down at the counter. She sat next to him and stared deep into his eyes.
“You high yet?” she asked, smirking.
He frowned at her.
“No,” he said. Stopped to check if he felt normal. “No,” he repeated, more confidently.
She was grinning at him.
“Aw. You don’t always your first time. It’s a shame. It might have made you happy.”
“You think I’m unhappy?”
“No, but – it makes some people happy.”
He looked at her, chewing his fish.
“What about you?”
She shrugged. Rested her head in her hands.
“It’s better than not being high, sometimes.”
She was grinning at him again.
“I heard corporate types like you ran on cheap speed all day.”
“It’s expensive speed, thank you,” he said. “And no, we don’t. Not all of us.”
“Just not you?”
He smiled at her.
“My body’s a temple,” he said.
She gave him a ridiculous smile. Then put her head in her hands.
“And there were no problems at work?” she asked, through them.
He shook his head.
“Nope.”
She looked up and for a second there was a hint of the old danger he was used to.
“And if there was, you’d tell me, right?”
He looked her straight in the eyes.
“Yes,” he lied.
~ ~ ~
He woke up the next day none the worse for wear, but with no particular desire to try weed ever again. He showered before going down to swim, in case he saw another tenant there, and afterwards he scrubbed his hair twice, just in case.
Darcy continued to lurk in his hallway, frowning at him as he got ready for work. She didn’t try to stop him, though.
Work was – odd. He seemed to have to spend so much of his time hand-holding his colleagues and providing a good example to them – but on the other hand, he was having a lot of meetings with people on the verge of panic, who made stupid mistakes he could take advantage of. On the whole, it was just exhausting.
When he got home the second night, the smell that assaulted him was chemical, like bleach.
“Darcy?” he called out, throwing his keys into the bowl.
“Bathroom!” she called back, from that direction.
He wandered down that way to see – well. A scene he’d never even dreamed of. The bathroom door was open, and inside was Darcy, bending over the sink, a dark brown towel around her shoulders. She seemed to be in her bra again, but at least she was covered up. She was surrounded by boxes and bottles, and there were splotches of blue everywhere. It looked like a muppet had died. Her hair was lying wet and flat to her head, and she was combing her fingers through it.
She looked up when he appeared in the doorway. She had tape along her hairline.
“Hey,” she said casually, looking back into the mirror.
He stared at her.
He would ask what she was doing – but it was pretty clear.
He turned and walked back down the hall to his bedroom. The thing was, he hadn’t actually given her specific instructions not to do things like ‘get very stoned on my couch’ or ‘turn my bathroom blue’. So what did he expect? She hadn’t shot anything yet. That was a plus.
He went back into the main room, got himself a scotch, and sat down on the couch. The news was playing on the TV again.
She came in after about twenty minutes, still wearing the towel and – a fucking showercap.
It took every inch of his self-control not to crack a smile.
“You bring that stuff with you too?” he asked. “Hair dye and weed, ‘Darcy’s essentials’?”
She gave him a sarcastic look, under the showercap.
“No,” she said. “Patrice brought it for me.”
He stared at her.
“Who’s Patrice?”
She stared back.
“Your housekeeper.”
He thought for a second. Oh.
Darcy was laughing at him.
“You’re such an asshole,” she said.
She was grinning at him, that thing just sitting on her head like an awkward balloon.
He chuckled himself and went back to the TV.
She sat down on the other couch, carefully, so the towel wouldn’t touch anything. There was a half-empty glass of scotch on the table. She picked it up.
“Is it all cleaned up in there?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m an old pro.”
He looked at her curiously.
“What’s your real hair colour?” he asked.
She looked at him, over her glass.
“Blue,” she said.
He smiled.
There was nothing on the news, except the usual scuffles. Darcy’s jaw went a little tight anyway. Dane switched over to the stock reports.
“Why do you have animal heads your study?” she asked him, suddenly.
He looked at her, distracted from the figures, then blinked. He realised what she meant.
“They’re hunting trophies,” he said, turning back to the screen.
“Yeah – I get that. Why do you have them?”
He looked at her. Searched her face. And smiled slightly.
“You just don’t seem like a ‘body parts’ kinda guy.”
“Well – they’re mine.”
She just stared at him for a moment. Then smiled, like he might be joking.
“What, you shot them?”
“Yeah.”
She studied his face again. Then sat up a little.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said, laughing at her amazement.
“You shot a lion?”
“Yeah.”
“And an elephant?”
“Yeah,” he said. “My dad used to take me on safaris when I was younger. He was big into hunting.”
“In Africa?”
“Yeah. Didn’t your dad take you hunting?”
“Nah,” she said. “We never got out of Stilwater. There’s not much hunting around here – ‘cept shooting rats.”
Charming.
She still looked genuinely delighted.
“So you can shoot?”
“A hunting rifle,” he said. “You think that’s gonna do me any good on the streets of Stilwater?”
“You should get – you should get a McManus,” she told him, getting lost in thought. “It’s only good from long-range, though.”
She looked back at him, and grinned again.
“Is there anything else I don’t know about you?”
He played with the remote for a second. He assumed he meant weapons.
“I’m a pretty good fencer,” he said. Her brow knitted immediately in confusion. “It’s sword-fighting – you probably wouldn’t be impressed, compared to a katana. But I was the college champion.”
She grinned at him like he was the best thing in the world. She looked back at the screen, shaking her head slightly.
He turned his attention back to the TV too. There was a competitor’s stocks coming up soon – with Ultor having ‘Stilwater’ troubles, it’d be nice if they took a hit.
“My dad used to make me fight the dogs,” she said, off-handedly.
Dane stopped, and then looked around at her. He was pretty sure she’d said those words, in that order. He frowned at her. She looked back, completely unperturbed.
“What?” he said.
“My dad,” she repeated. “He used to make me fight the dogs. I guess that’s sorta like hunting.”
“He…used to make you fight the dogs?”
She nodded.
“For what?” he asked.
“For dinner,” she said. As though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
He stared at her. No further answers seemed to be forthcoming.
She frowned at him a little as he continued to stare. He looked back at the screen.
Well.
Maybe that explained a few things.
He thought, not for the first time, that her dad might be someone he’d like to meet one day.
Eventually, he got back into the stock market figures. There was a stretch of companies he didn’t care about coming up, so he switched back to the news.
“ – of Vice Kings arrests,” Jane Valderamma was saying, “in the Downtown area, according to police reports – ”
Dane sat up and Darcy sat forward.
“Our top headline again: a number of high-profile members of the Vice Kings were arrested tonight in an extensive police operation across the neighbourhood. Police Chief Monroe gave this statement:…”
They cut to a replay of Chief Monroe making an announcement. There was nothing in it that Jane Valderamma hadn’t already said. Dane looked at Darcy. Her eyes were huge and she was breathing slightly faster. Even with the showercap, she looked intense.
The Chief didn’t say they’d apprehended the head of the gang, or even give any further clue to who that might be. And maybe it was spin, to make the P.D. sound good. But it did sound like a lot of Vice Kings had been caught, or killed.
“What does this mean?” he asked Darcy.
She was furrowing her brow, staring at the TV.
“I don’t know,” she said. She shook her head.
“The Saints’ll probably try to go for the Vice Kings now, right?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. She looked like she was desperately trying to work it out herself. She glanced over to the window.
“Their days have to be numbered, by now.”
He was aware he was trying to assure himself, as much as anything.
Darcy gave him a hard look.
“Well people on the ropes swing harder, Dane,” she snapped.
The rest of the night was uneasy. They kept the news on, but nothing further happened. Darcy was restless, frequently getting up just to pace around the room, straying just a little closer to the blinds than was necessary, as if she could somehow absorb information from the glass, or through it.
After a couple of hours, she got up and tore out of the room suddenly. Dane was confused, until he heard the water running. After a little while she came back, without the showercap, her hair bright and vivid and even. She sat down heavily on the couch without giving him a second look. She refused a drink after her second one, and Dane went to bed leaving her on the couch, staring into space, clenching her fist periodically. He realised he’d never seen her go to bed since she’d been here. He wondered when she slept.
Part 4
Fandom: Saints Row series (video game)
Disclaimer: I don't own the Saints Row universe and I'm not making any money off this.
Part 1
Part 2
18.
The only saving grace of the airport situation was that things were quiet, for a while. Maybe the Saints had some shame. Maybe they were taking a break after wiping out the Carnales. Or maybe they were gearing up to go after King.
But there were plenty of downsides. An entire month’s worth of meetings and conferences had to be scrapped, because there was no way to get the delegates in or their own executives out. Even if they were willing to use the city’s ferry services, the whole routes were packed to bursting. Leaving the city, anyway – but they could hardly bring delegates in without giving them a way to leave.
They rearranged the most important meetings into conference calls, and tried to arrange private transport by boat. Besides that, they had staff members who were out of town when the explosion happened, and they had to arrange cover for them until they could make it back into the city. Happily, the people who were still in the city really did want to work. Or to distract themselves. Either way, it worked out.
Ultor should build a helipad on the roof of the office, Dane thought, when they had the funds again. It was an expense – plus the running of a helicopter – but contingency plans were apparently very valuable in Stilwater. Maybe they could do a deal with the airport.
The off the books ‘deliveries’ stopped. There was barely any stock coming in, and now things were calmer in the South of the city it wasn’t worth the risk of exposure. Darcy took the news gracefully, as though the money meant nothing to her. She was quiet for a few of their lunches though.
Dane told his superiors what he could about what was going on in the city, leaving his specific sources out of it. They didn’t want to hear it – didn’t really believe it would come to that. And maybe they were right – the Saints had had a good run, but Ben King had friends in the police department and City Hall, so maybe they wouldn’t last long against him. But hadn’t they thought that when they first rose up in Saints Row? So Dane told them anyway. He suggested they hire extra security for the stores Downtown and in the Retail district, and for the offices, and do whatever they could to get the suburbs and South island stores back on their feet, quickly. They might be carrying Ultor through what came next.
The Vice Kings didn’t go for a pre-emptive strike, which Dane felt was to their credit. They certainly held themselves a little more classily than the Saints. Or maybe it was inaction on Ben King’s part – maybe it was time for a change in management. Whatever the reason, it gave Ultor plenty of time to prepare.
The first warning sign of things heating up again, as usual, came from Darcy. She came to one of their lunches edgy than usual, clenching and unclenching her fists.
“What’s wrong?” Dane asked, lowly, over his menu.
She met his eyes, looking furious. But shook her head, looking away again.
A few weeks later, Ben King’s record studio blew up, killing Aisha. Dane could see the smoke from his window when he got home that night.
The city took Aisha’s death hard, for some reason. She wasn’t exactly a pillar of the community but – she’d meant something to Stilwater. The girl from the slums gone good. Proof that you could get off of the streets, sometimes. The level of public mourning was intense. Kingdom Come records announced they were putting out a memorial boxset – Dane was privately impressed.
Some people were upset for different reasons. To them, Aisha’s death meant even thugs from the Row weren’t safe. So how could they be? Other people said she’d probably been a mole for the Vice Kings, and the Saints had blown up the building to get to her, not the other way around. But whatever way they thought of it, everyone knew what was coming. Again.
It didn’t take long. There was fighting in the Red Light district – it didn’t mean much to most people, except those who suddenly had nothing to do on a Saturday night, but Dane knew it was where the borders began. Not just the borders – a huge lynchpin of the Vice Kings’ operations.
Darcy was furious at their next lunch. Blindingly, chokingly furious. She was friends with a lot of hookers, he knew.
There was a full-on shootout in a brothel, eventually. Then another. Then another. Then another. All in the same brothel. It was a desirable location, apparently. He wasn’t sure how many customers they’d have after that, though. As a business proposition it probably wasn’t even worth the ammunition. But there was more to it than money, of course.
Then there was some fight in the Projects. That didn’t even get as much airplay at the Red Light district – not enough sleaze – but apparently someone high up in the Saints got killed. Things went quiet again, for a little while.
Ben King didn’t hit back at the Saints, and he could’ve, especially with his contacts. He seemed more concerned with rebuilding his studio, and networking at City Hall. Dane didn’t know whether to be impressed with the man or exasperated. But he couldn’t exactly blame the man if he wanted to be a genuine businessman, not just a criminal in a fancy suit.
But it meant that the Saints survived. He started noticing more and more purple on the streets when he drove to work, or walked around with Darcy. He also noticed she walked a little closer to him than before.
Dane tried to impress on his superiors that the violence would be coming back to the North island, that the attack on Kingdom Come records wasn’t just a one-off. He tried to convince them the Saints were already here. They were in a better position than they had been a few months ago – Wardill was almost running at full capacity again, they had plenty of stock coming in, and their support in its rebuilding effort meant there was a unit in a prime location just waiting for them when it opened fully again, in what was now one of the most secure areas in the city. And thanks to Dane’s tireless work, their peripheral stores were stable again, and turning a healthy profit.
They had to take advantage of that. His bosses were still dubious, but a few police reports convinced them. They switched some security around from the suburban and Southeast stores to the central ones – happily, they had a lot of veterans working for them now.
Just in time. Later that week, there was an attack at a set of condos, not far from where Dane lived. Or worked. It was over almost as soon as it had begun, but a lot of Ultor’s people didn’t come into work the following day. And not just clerks, his colleagues, people he was forced to consider his peers. It was goddamn unprofessional. But on the other hand, his bosses were giving him that look he loved – that ‘you talented son of a bitch’ look. That ‘we can’t ignore you any longer’ look.
He heard gunshots as he was driving home that night. Not long after he got in, he got a call. From Darcy.
“Hey,” she said. “Let me up.”
He frowned.
“Up – where?”
She couldn’t be…
“Into your apartment,” she said impatiently.
“Darcy – you can’t just come around whenever you feel like it – ”
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Let me up!”
He took a deep breath. Centred himself.
“I’ll call the doorman,” he said, an attempt at pacification, and hung up the phone.
He had been trying to get her up her for months, he supposed. And maybe she needed his help. Maybe she was in trouble.
He told the doorman to buzz her up, and waited for the knock. He only had to wait a few minutes. He opened the door to her looking very angry. She walked in without saying anything, and kicked off her shoes. He realised at some point she’d switched from trainers to combat boots.
She stalked down into the main room.
“Can you shoot?” she asked, as he followed her in.
He blinked at her.
“What?”
“Can you shoot?” she replied, like he was slow.
“I – what? Darcy…”
“Don’t fuck around, Dane! Can you shoot?”
He stared at her. She was standing, arms spread slightly, like she wanted a fight. And she was apparently angry at him.
He folded his arms.
“Yeah,” he said. “I took a few lessons with Ultor when I first joined up.”
She scowled at him. Then she reached behind her, to her waistband – no – and pulled out a goddamned gun.
She held it out to him, grip first.
“Show me,” she said.
He slapped it away.
“What the fuck are you doing, Darcy?!” he hissed. He stared at her. Her eyes were hard, impenetrable.
“What are you gonna do if someone attacks you, Dane?” she demanded. “What are you gonna do if someone comes up here? Tell me!”
“No-one’s coming up here –”
“You don’t know! No-one knows!”
He clenched his jaw, and pointed at the gun still in her hand.
“Is that thing even licensed? You brought it up to my goddamn apartment – !”
“You think this place is safe? You think I’m the only one who can find it?!”
He put his hands over his face. She was breathing hard. She wasn’t being rational right now. He knew she wasn’t.
“Darcy,” he said, calmly, raising his head and looking her in the eyes. “This isn’t Saints Row.”
She just stared at him for a second. Then screwed up her face in a sneer.
“If this was Saints Row, you’d be dead,” she said. She readjusted her stance, the gun swinging in her hand. For a moment her eyes looked bright. Almost wet. “You wanna die? Fine! Don’t ask me to come to your fucking funeral!”
She stormed out past him, not touching him. He heard the front door slam.
He put his head down and closed his eyes.
Jesus.
He looked up, round at the door she’d left through. Then he laughed, quietly. Then he headed down to his office to do some paperwork.
19.
He got a promotion. Due to his uncanny understanding of where trouble was coming from next. It was a lot of trust, and he was planning to do plenty with it.
He hadn’t mentioned where a lot of his ‘uncanny understanding’ came from, and he wasn’t sure that’d be much of a source in the future. But he had his other contacts. He’d manage.
He got a new office, and a driver rather than a company car. That certainly made his drive to and from the office a lot more productive.
He occasionally got weird chills as he came in and out of work, though. His driver, Matthew, didn’t seem to notice anything. So he put it down to adrenaline from the new promotion, and the current situation.
About a week after his promotion, there a major incident in the city. Two maniacs shot up the Retail district. They killed a couple of shop clerks, blew up an art installation, and bulldozed Alderman Hughes’ statue. Which would cost everyone a pretty penny.
It knocked the business district for a loop. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen here. Even more confusing, the maniacs in question were Vice Kings, which didn’t make any goddamn sense, because this was their turf. So now no-one knew what was going on. Maybe they were sick of the gang wars. Or sick of Ben King doing nothing and leaving his people to hang. Or maybe he’d done something to upset them personally. Either way, the Police Chief Monroe finally had to go on the news and promise to do something about the out-of-control Vice Kings.
That’d make things chilly between him and Ben King.
Later reports of the news revealed that the rampage had actually started in Saints Row. Which – which made more sense. The two Kings had apparently just started firing on civilians. Then led the police a merry dance into their own territory, and gone to town. Maybe they were high. Who knew?
He didn’t call.
No Ultor stores were hit. The staff were shaken, but more angry – the resilience of the privileged. Dane ordered them to close the store as a sign of respect – they wouldn’t have much passing trade in the next few days anyway, or much luck with traffic as the clean-up crews worked, and it would look good to the public.
Which left him just trying to figure out what would happen next. Were King’s people snapping? Or going rogue? Or had he ordered this, in a sudden, wild change of heart? He didn’t seem very sudden or wild to Dane, but if he had, the situation had backfired on him. It had probably worked out better for the Saints, unless they really did care about the people in their neighbourhood. A lot of the residents that were left were probably more ready to sign up with the Saints though. For revenge.
Chief Monroe was as good as his word, and the following days included a number of high profile Vice King arrests. Not the highest profile one, of course. Maybe this was King’s plan all along – to get out of his own gang by getting the rest of them killed or arrested.
Dane figured he’d probably never be able to ask Darcy again. If she was even alive. The way she’d left seemed – pretty final, if he wasn’t going to do what she wanted. And he wasn’t. And neither was he going to call and try to smooth things over, and imply that sort of behaviour was in any way okay. He got Sharks tickets sent to his office – he had a standing order on them now. He put them in his desk drawer, and cancelled it.
He caught one of his co-workers crying in the bathroom. He dried his hands and ignored her. They had work to do.
~ ~ ~
A few weeks later, things went a little more properly to hell. Kingdom Come records studio got blown up again – you’d think they’d be sick of doing that. And then, Ben King went missing.
Went missing. No-one knew where he was, or where he might be. Dane’s police contacts seemed genuinely at a loss, rather than tight-lipped. There was some word about a gunfight at a museum – a museum now overrun with people decked out in purple – but after that, nothing.
The Vice Kings were still on the streets, though. And they were more violent than ever. Gunfights just opened up, in the business district, in the high street. In broad daylight. Wherever the Kings and Saints met, apparently. Either they were all going rogue, or whoever was in charge of things now had finally taken the Kings off the leash.
Everyone panicked. Quietly and hysterically. And not just because streets that had always been quiet before had suddenly lit up – because everyone knew who Ben King was, everyone knew what he was, no matter how close he got with City Hall. They knew he was running the Vice Kings, and they probably, deep down, thought he was the one who was gonna stop the Saints, and get things back to normal.
And now he was gone. And the Kings and Saints were going at each other. And no-one knew what was going to happen.
Dane scrambled to keep things under control. Extra security, more security for the stock in transit, back-up cover for the Retail stores, in case the staff there couldn’t handle it anymore. He hired a couple more PTSD counsellors. Wardill airport reopened, and he talked about what a good thing it was, what a great thing for the city, how things could start running as normal again.
They hadn’t finished the helipad on the roof.
They started getting reports about a number of stores in Nob Hill burning to the ground, the staff seemingly executed. Dane couldn’t understand it at all, until he realised it was along the borders of Saints and Kings territory, where a yellow neighbourhood was about to changes hands, and then he realised – the Kings were burning their assets. Gutting them, before the Saints could get hold of them.
He wanted to laugh. In the privacy of his office, he did laugh.
Business was brutal.
He did what he could. Organised extra security for their own stores. Anything less than a private army wasn’t going to help. One of the stores fell anyway. Rebuilding it would be – costly.
He wished he could talk to Darcy about it. She was a great sounding board. She just listened, and didn’t care.
She probably wouldn’t have let him, though. It was gang business now.
He infrequently hired escorts, just to blow off some steam. The women he saw now seemed – frightened. He thought about Madam Wu’s and wondered if anyone was looking out for them.
The police were cracking down on the Vice Kings more and more every day, and practically ignoring the Saints, who were pushing them back. Whoever was in charge of the Vice Kings now was not Ben King. It would probably be over soon. Right?
20.
He started getting those chills more and more, when he left work or his building. Sometimes when he was coming home and got out of his car, he’d swear he saw the shadows across the street move.
He was genuinely concerned at first. Until it occurred to him what it might be.
He called Darcy one evening after work, in the main room, a glass of scotch in his other hand.
She picked up.
“I told you not to call me.” She sounded tired, but not particularly angry.
He smiled.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
A short breath on the other end of the line.
“Watching a Sharks game,” she said. “I’m here with all my friends. There’s Elvis, and Mayor Winslow…Richard Hughes had to cancel when he heard Winslow was coming…”
He smiled again, resting his head against the phone.
“Come up,” he said.
A pause.
“Where?” she asked.
“To the apartment.”
Another pause.
“I know you’re down there, Darcy. You can watch the door better from up here. And it’s warmer.”
Another pause. Then he heard a muttered curse, and the line cut off.
He buzzed the doorman.
She looked annoyed when he opened the door to her. And – not exactly sheepish, but like she might possibly be able to imagine what that emotion would feel like.
He gestured her to come in. She kicked off her boots and wandered down the hall to the main room.
When he followed her in she was stood stock still, looking around like she was assessing the place, even though she’d been here before.
“Drink?” he asked. She turned and nodded. Then walked over and flopped down on a couch.
He handed her the drink, and sat on the other couch.
“So how’ve you been?” he asked, pleasantly.
She shot him a sarcastic look.
“Fantastic,” she said. “How’ve you been?”
As if she didn’t know.
“I got a promotion,” he said, taking a sip of his drink.
She rolled her eyes, looking at the wall.
“No congratulations?”
“You usually do,” she said.
She looked back at him.
“How’s work?”
He considered the answer.
“People are scared,” he finally said. She gave him a look that suggested those people were a lot smarter than he was, and then went back to looking at the wall.
“What happened on Saints Row?” he asked. She looked at him sharply. “When the Vice Kings attacked.”
Her face twisted up, fingers tightening on the glass, white-knuckled.
“It was Gat,” she said, and took a hit of scotch.
He blinked at her for a second.
“What – Johnny Gat?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
Except he knew – he knew why. To make the Vice Kings look bad. He’d almost thought at the time.
Jesus.
“So people would think the Vice Kings did it,” she answered. “Worked.”
“And they just opened fire on Saints Row?”
Her fingers tightened a little more on the glass. Any more and it’d fracture. She nodded.
“Anyone you know?” he asked, watching her.
“I know a lot of people,” she said, and threw back the rest of her scotch.
“Your cousin? Dad?”
She twitched, still not meeting his eyes.
“My cousin’s dead,” she said.
“What, in the attack?”
“No,” she said. “When the Carnales attacked a few months ago. He got hit by a car.”
Dane stared at her.
“You never said.”
She shrugged.
“People die.”
Things were quiet for a second.
“What about your dad?”
She gave him that warning look she always did whenever he brought up her dad. He didn’t know why she didn’t want to talk about him – she seemed perfectly affectionate when she did.
“He’s fine,” she muttered.
There was an awkward pause.
“When the Saints win,” Dane said, “will things calm down again?”
Her eyes slid over to his. She just held them for a moment.
“Probably,” she said. She tapped her fingers on her glass. “Until the next asshole decides they want to run things instead.”
The silence stretched out for a few minutes this time.
“Where are you staying right now?” Dane asked.
She shrugged.
“I’ve got a car.”
“What does that mean?”
“That if push comes to shove, I can sleep in my car.”
Jesus. It was winter – it’d been below freezing some nights this week.
“Can you afford to run the engine all night?”
She gave him a hard look.
“I’m fine.”
He sighed.
“Are things quiet on Saints Row, at least? Now?”
Another of those hard, wary looks.
“Yeah,” she said. “The actual Vice Kings haven’t come after us yet.”
Her hand twisted on the glass again.
“How did you know it was Gat?”
“I know how he holds a gun.”
He watched her for a moment. She was staring off into space, brow knitted. Lost in thought. Or memories.
He looked around his high class, expensively furnished, pristine apartment. And then back at her.
“You can stay here,” he said. “If you have nowhere else.”
She went tense and still, because this was a big deal, but also because he’d been right, you could watch the door better from up here, and she didn’t want to leave. He knew she wouldn’t. Which meant she’d probably stay, which meant this was essentially just his decision, and Christ he was fucking himself. Seeing her every now and then was one thing. Letting her stay was another.
But the fact was, he liked Darcy. He liked having her around. He wanted to have her around.
“Alright,” she said, finally. Her shoulders slumped, like she was somehow defeated. Maybe she’d lost a fight with herself. She started openly looking around the apartment. Where she’d be staying.
He found he’d been holding his breath.
“D’you want another drink?” he asked, gesturing her empty glass. She looked down at like she’d forgotten it was there, and nodded, holding it out.
He went back into the kitchenette. He was spending – a lot of time in his life with a young psychopath. But then, if she wasn’t in here, she’d only be across the street anyway.
Sirens wailed faintly outside his window, which they shouldn’t have done because he’d paid for noise-cancelling glass. It suddenly occurred to him that Darcy had essentially grown up in a warzone, and now that it had calmed down – barring the odd attack from its own ranks – she wanted to be up here, on the front lines, with him.
She was still looking around the apartment. She didn’t seem bothered by the sirens at all.
He came back over and handed her the drink, sitting back down.
“Do you know what happened to Ben King?” he asked. It was one of the things he was genuinely curious about.
Darcy went tense again for a moment, and then shrugged uncomfortably. She had a drink.
“I think he’s on the Row,” she said.
Dane did a small double-take.
“What, Saints Row?”
She nodded.
“Some people said they saw a beat-up car speeding around the night he disappeared, that stopped outside the Church. They said a guy got out, looking just like him. Went inside.”
“Wait, what church?”
“The Saints’ church.”
“They have a church? What are they, a cult?”
“No,” she said, smiling slightly. “They work out of an old church. Abandoned, you know. Cuz they’re the ‘Saints’, or whatever.”
Dane thought that over.
“That’s ridiculous,” he concluded. She nodded. “And wait, people just know about it? Everyone knows about it?”
“Well, not everyone. People on the Row do.”
“And Ben King?”
“Well – the gangs do, yeah.”
“So why don’t people just attack the Church?”
“They do. What do you think they’re always trying to blow up?”
Silence, while he pondered that for a moment.
“Do the police know about it?” They were good friends with King, of course. Or had been.
She shrugged, having another drink.
“Probably.”
“So why don’t they arrest them?”
She smiled at him.
“The police don’t care, Dane. They don’t care about anything if it’s not on the news.”
They were quiet again.
He thought for a moment.
“Do you know who’s in charge of the Vice Kings now?”
The smile dropped off her face again. She stared down into her scotch, grimacing.
“No,” she said. “But they’re clearly some sort of asshole.” She threw back another mouthful.
Silence again.
“The spare room’s made up,” he said. It always was, in case he had unexpected stopovers. She nodded her thanks.
21.
He tried to be quiet the next morning. But she still ended up hanging out in the hallway, glaring at him as he went for his early morning swim.
“I’m just going down to the pool,” he said. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
She frowned, and looked like she wanted to come with him. But she didn’t say anything, holding herself rigid in the doorway. Then she turned and went into the main room.
He came back, showered, and put on his suit. When he came out into the kitchenette she was sat at the counter, glaring at him. Like a housecat that didn’t want him to leave for work. She didn’t want him to go for a different reason, of course.
He got out his usual breakfast of muesli and grapefruit juice, ignoring the perplexed frown Darcy was giving it. He sat down to eat. He could feel her glaring at him, eyeing his suit.
“You can’t follow me to work, Darcy,” he said.
She scowled down at the marble countertop.
“I know you’re worried,” he said. “But panicking’s the worst thing we could do right now.”
She looked him square in the eyes.
“Dying’s the worst thing you could do.”
“I’m going to be fine, Darcy. It’s a short drive, and it’s not that dangerous between here and there – you know that. We’ve been having more trouble at the stores than the offices. Don’t follow me. Please.”
She continued to glare down at the countertop. But she nodded.
Dane sighed a little in relief.
“If you want to leave, use the side entrance. I’ve spoken to the doorman, he’ll let you in and out. Please don’t hang around in the lobby or talk to any of my neighbours.”
She was frowning at his muesli again.
“What’s to eat?”
Well – damn. Nothing she’d enjoy, probably.
He thought for a moment.
“There’s a red box in the desk of my study, third drawer down. The key’s in the aspirin bottle in my medicine cabinet. It’s just petty cash, about a hundred dollars. You can go and buy whatever you want, or get takeaway, whatever.”
She nodded shortly, not meeting his eyes. He looked at her, sitting there in his pristine apartment.
He sighed.
~ ~ ~
He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t on his mind all day, but he just got on with his work, even so. He didn’t get any calls from the owner of the building or see anything on the news, so he figured things were okay.
On his drive home, he saw someone get knifed in an alleyway. He decided not to mention it to Darcy.
On reflection, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised to come home and find his apartment stinking of weed.
He walked into the main room to see Darcy sat on the couch, in a bathrobe, feet propped up on the table, smoking a blunt right there and then.
“Are you capable,” he asked, “of coming to my apartment without something incredibly illegal?”
She took a long drag on the cigarette.
“You get a lot of raids on this place, Danny boy?” she asked, blowing out the smoke.
He sighed, and headed down to his room to get changed.
He put on some casual clothes he didn’t wear very often, and put his suit aside to be dry-cleaned, just in case.
He came back into the main room. The smoke made his eyes water. He tried not to cough. He poured himself a scotch, although he figured he wouldn’t need as much of it tonight.
The big TV was on. The news was playing, on silent. Only stuff they’d seen before.
He walked back to the couch and sat down. Her feet were still up on the coffee table, and got his first look at the tattoos on her legs. They were pretty nice, actually. Vivid. Detailed.
“Why are you in a bathrobe?” he asked. It was a guest one, at least.
She shrugged.
“Figured I’d wash my clothes, while I’m here,” she said. “Don’t always have chance at a washing machine.” Her eyes slid over to his. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He shook his head. Thought for a minute. He wasn’t sure where his washing machine actually was.
She went back to watching the news.
“Your housekeeper’s nice,” she said, off-hand.
He’d forgotten about her. Wondered if she’d gotten a shock when she saw Darcy there today.
“You didn’t scare her off, did you?”
“Nah. It was nice to have the company.”
He wondered what Darcy had told her.
She took another drag on the cigarette. Dane watched her, probably looking unimpressed. She caught him, smiled, and when she was done, she held it out to him. Grinning at him.
She obviously didn’t expect him to take it. She was just teasing him, again.
He held her gaze for a second. Then he reached out and took it from her fingers, a little carefully. Her grin widened.
It’s not like he didn’t know people who did it in college. Most of the people in his hall, in fact, although he’d always turned his nose up. But people paid thousands of dollars a year for this stuff. There must be something good about it.
Darcy was still grinning, watching him. He put it to his lips like a cigar, and drew in a breath, tried to hold it like she did. Then started coughing.
“Jesus,” he said, passing it back to her. “People actually enjoy that stuff?”
She was chuckling, taking the blunt back.
“It takes a little getting used to,” she said. “This is primo stuff – might have been a little strong for you.”
He sat back on the couch, just about over the coughing. He wanted to have a drink of scotch, but that would probably just make things worse.
“Did you order it in?”
She gave him a mock-offended look.
“No!” she said. “Like I’m gonna bring some drug dealer up here.”
She went back to watching the news. Her eyes slightly narrowed. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea for her to have had something relaxing.
They sat in silence for a little while, watching. He suddenly realised he was hungry, and genuinely wondered if he had the munchies for a split second, before he realised he’d skipped dinner at the office while he was working late.
He got up to look for something in the fridge.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
He looked up. She was nodding, watching him. He went back to the fridge. There was some halibut from the weekend, still.
He heard her get up.
“Gonna go see if the clothes are dry,” she said.
He switched on the grill.
The oil was sizzling, the smell of cooking fish filling the air and chasing away the other smell, when Darcy came back in and he discovered she had no problems wandering around other people’s houses half-naked.
“Jesus, Darcy!” He almost turned to face the wall – settled for staring up at the ceiling. She was just wearing her bra and jeans.
“Calm down, Dane,” she said. “Just pretend it’s a bikini. My shirt’s still wet.”
He huffed, and looked down. She was indeed still there, in just her bra. She didn’t seem at all perturbed by the situation.
“Can’t wear the robe over it?”
“Over jeans? No. It won’t be long. Another fifteen minutes.”
He continued to stare at her. If this was going to turn into a come-on, after all this time, he was going to be annoyed.
It didn’t turn into a come-on. She looked no more romantic than he felt. She turned to grab a glass from the cupboard.
He glared at her back as she crossed to the tap.
She really did have a lot of tattoos.
The one of the black woman with a katana slung over her shoulder was probably the most striking, but another one caught his eye. Over by the seam of her right arm, just over the band of the bra, were a little set of faces. By the iconography, he’d say they were Catholic saints – one of them seemed to be being crucified. They were done up in all sorts of colours, but underneath was another line of faces, in black and white, almost photorealistic.
“Are you religious?” he asked. Surprising himself. He wasn’t usually that blunt. Maybe it was the weed.
She stiffened.
“What?” she said.
“The tattoo,” he said. “Are they saints?”
She turned quickly, so he couldn’t see it anymore. She stared at him, her eyes hard, but red-rimmed.
The tattoos under her collarbone, that he could never quite see for the straps of her vests, turned out to be a medal saying ‘daddy’ on one side, and a set of wheels with ‘mom’ in the rims on the other.
She stared at him for a long moment, looking a little uncertain. She seemed to be studying him.
“I didn’t know you were religious,” he offered. “That’s all.”
She stared at him for another moment – and then relaxed. Sort of.
“I’m not,” she said, finally. Watching him. “My dad used to take me sometimes. I got that a long time ago – I thought it was appropriate.”
He studied her.
“For Saints Row?”
She nodded.
“Who are they?”
She looked at him again, assessing.
“There’s St Margaret of Antioch,” she said. Challengingly. “For pregnant women. St Dismas, for thieves. St Callistus I – he’s for cemeteries.” She held his eyes hard. “St Andrew Corsini is for riots. And St Adjutor is for people like you – swimmers.”
He gave her a sarcastic smile. She smiled, a little, back.
“What about the people underneath?”
The smile dropped off her face. Silence.
Dane turned back to his grill. It didn’t need adjusting, but he turned some of the knobs anyway.
“What about the woman?” he said, as though nothing was wrong. “She an ex?”
“What woman?” She sounded a little off.
“The one with the sword.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s Samurai Jodie. Didn’t you watch Samurai Jodie when you were a kid?”
She sounded a little forced, but also genuinely disbelieving. He turned back around to her.
“Samurai Jodie?” he said. “No. I guess it didn’t make it out to California.”
“It was the best kids show ever,” she said. “She’s the reason I wanted to learn the katana.”
“You can use a katana? Did your dad teach you that too?”
“No – it was a guy on my block. I stopped him from getting robbed one time. He gave me lessons. We used to have tea and stuff.”
“A guy? Was he any good?”
“Yeah. His name was Rokuro, he ran a Brass Knuckles. He was great – said I was good too. He said I was ‘single-minded’.”
Dane wondered what that was a euphemism for. He wondered if she was actually any good, or just scary enough that the guy didn’t want to upset her.
“He was Japanese?”
“Yeah. He used to tell me about Japan sometimes. Nice guy, considering.”
“Considering…?”
“Considering most of the people on the Row.”
Huh. He’d thought she knew a weird amount about Japan when he told her about his time in Tokyo.
His fish was done. She went to check on her clothes again. When she came back, she was wearing a t-shirt, happily.
He sat down at the counter. She sat next to him and stared deep into his eyes.
“You high yet?” she asked, smirking.
He frowned at her.
“No,” he said. Stopped to check if he felt normal. “No,” he repeated, more confidently.
She was grinning at him.
“Aw. You don’t always your first time. It’s a shame. It might have made you happy.”
“You think I’m unhappy?”
“No, but – it makes some people happy.”
He looked at her, chewing his fish.
“What about you?”
She shrugged. Rested her head in her hands.
“It’s better than not being high, sometimes.”
She was grinning at him again.
“I heard corporate types like you ran on cheap speed all day.”
“It’s expensive speed, thank you,” he said. “And no, we don’t. Not all of us.”
“Just not you?”
He smiled at her.
“My body’s a temple,” he said.
She gave him a ridiculous smile. Then put her head in her hands.
“And there were no problems at work?” she asked, through them.
He shook his head.
“Nope.”
She looked up and for a second there was a hint of the old danger he was used to.
“And if there was, you’d tell me, right?”
He looked her straight in the eyes.
“Yes,” he lied.
~ ~ ~
He woke up the next day none the worse for wear, but with no particular desire to try weed ever again. He showered before going down to swim, in case he saw another tenant there, and afterwards he scrubbed his hair twice, just in case.
Darcy continued to lurk in his hallway, frowning at him as he got ready for work. She didn’t try to stop him, though.
Work was – odd. He seemed to have to spend so much of his time hand-holding his colleagues and providing a good example to them – but on the other hand, he was having a lot of meetings with people on the verge of panic, who made stupid mistakes he could take advantage of. On the whole, it was just exhausting.
When he got home the second night, the smell that assaulted him was chemical, like bleach.
“Darcy?” he called out, throwing his keys into the bowl.
“Bathroom!” she called back, from that direction.
He wandered down that way to see – well. A scene he’d never even dreamed of. The bathroom door was open, and inside was Darcy, bending over the sink, a dark brown towel around her shoulders. She seemed to be in her bra again, but at least she was covered up. She was surrounded by boxes and bottles, and there were splotches of blue everywhere. It looked like a muppet had died. Her hair was lying wet and flat to her head, and she was combing her fingers through it.
She looked up when he appeared in the doorway. She had tape along her hairline.
“Hey,” she said casually, looking back into the mirror.
He stared at her.
He would ask what she was doing – but it was pretty clear.
He turned and walked back down the hall to his bedroom. The thing was, he hadn’t actually given her specific instructions not to do things like ‘get very stoned on my couch’ or ‘turn my bathroom blue’. So what did he expect? She hadn’t shot anything yet. That was a plus.
He went back into the main room, got himself a scotch, and sat down on the couch. The news was playing on the TV again.
She came in after about twenty minutes, still wearing the towel and – a fucking showercap.
It took every inch of his self-control not to crack a smile.
“You bring that stuff with you too?” he asked. “Hair dye and weed, ‘Darcy’s essentials’?”
She gave him a sarcastic look, under the showercap.
“No,” she said. “Patrice brought it for me.”
He stared at her.
“Who’s Patrice?”
She stared back.
“Your housekeeper.”
He thought for a second. Oh.
Darcy was laughing at him.
“You’re such an asshole,” she said.
She was grinning at him, that thing just sitting on her head like an awkward balloon.
He chuckled himself and went back to the TV.
She sat down on the other couch, carefully, so the towel wouldn’t touch anything. There was a half-empty glass of scotch on the table. She picked it up.
“Is it all cleaned up in there?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m an old pro.”
He looked at her curiously.
“What’s your real hair colour?” he asked.
She looked at him, over her glass.
“Blue,” she said.
He smiled.
There was nothing on the news, except the usual scuffles. Darcy’s jaw went a little tight anyway. Dane switched over to the stock reports.
“Why do you have animal heads your study?” she asked him, suddenly.
He looked at her, distracted from the figures, then blinked. He realised what she meant.
“They’re hunting trophies,” he said, turning back to the screen.
“Yeah – I get that. Why do you have them?”
He looked at her. Searched her face. And smiled slightly.
“You just don’t seem like a ‘body parts’ kinda guy.”
“Well – they’re mine.”
She just stared at him for a moment. Then smiled, like he might be joking.
“What, you shot them?”
“Yeah.”
She studied his face again. Then sat up a little.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said, laughing at her amazement.
“You shot a lion?”
“Yeah.”
“And an elephant?”
“Yeah,” he said. “My dad used to take me on safaris when I was younger. He was big into hunting.”
“In Africa?”
“Yeah. Didn’t your dad take you hunting?”
“Nah,” she said. “We never got out of Stilwater. There’s not much hunting around here – ‘cept shooting rats.”
Charming.
She still looked genuinely delighted.
“So you can shoot?”
“A hunting rifle,” he said. “You think that’s gonna do me any good on the streets of Stilwater?”
“You should get – you should get a McManus,” she told him, getting lost in thought. “It’s only good from long-range, though.”
She looked back at him, and grinned again.
“Is there anything else I don’t know about you?”
He played with the remote for a second. He assumed he meant weapons.
“I’m a pretty good fencer,” he said. Her brow knitted immediately in confusion. “It’s sword-fighting – you probably wouldn’t be impressed, compared to a katana. But I was the college champion.”
She grinned at him like he was the best thing in the world. She looked back at the screen, shaking her head slightly.
He turned his attention back to the TV too. There was a competitor’s stocks coming up soon – with Ultor having ‘Stilwater’ troubles, it’d be nice if they took a hit.
“My dad used to make me fight the dogs,” she said, off-handedly.
Dane stopped, and then looked around at her. He was pretty sure she’d said those words, in that order. He frowned at her. She looked back, completely unperturbed.
“What?” he said.
“My dad,” she repeated. “He used to make me fight the dogs. I guess that’s sorta like hunting.”
“He…used to make you fight the dogs?”
She nodded.
“For what?” he asked.
“For dinner,” she said. As though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
He stared at her. No further answers seemed to be forthcoming.
She frowned at him a little as he continued to stare. He looked back at the screen.
Well.
Maybe that explained a few things.
He thought, not for the first time, that her dad might be someone he’d like to meet one day.
Eventually, he got back into the stock market figures. There was a stretch of companies he didn’t care about coming up, so he switched back to the news.
“ – of Vice Kings arrests,” Jane Valderamma was saying, “in the Downtown area, according to police reports – ”
Dane sat up and Darcy sat forward.
“Our top headline again: a number of high-profile members of the Vice Kings were arrested tonight in an extensive police operation across the neighbourhood. Police Chief Monroe gave this statement:…”
They cut to a replay of Chief Monroe making an announcement. There was nothing in it that Jane Valderamma hadn’t already said. Dane looked at Darcy. Her eyes were huge and she was breathing slightly faster. Even with the showercap, she looked intense.
The Chief didn’t say they’d apprehended the head of the gang, or even give any further clue to who that might be. And maybe it was spin, to make the P.D. sound good. But it did sound like a lot of Vice Kings had been caught, or killed.
“What does this mean?” he asked Darcy.
She was furrowing her brow, staring at the TV.
“I don’t know,” she said. She shook her head.
“The Saints’ll probably try to go for the Vice Kings now, right?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. She looked like she was desperately trying to work it out herself. She glanced over to the window.
“Their days have to be numbered, by now.”
He was aware he was trying to assure himself, as much as anything.
Darcy gave him a hard look.
“Well people on the ropes swing harder, Dane,” she snapped.
The rest of the night was uneasy. They kept the news on, but nothing further happened. Darcy was restless, frequently getting up just to pace around the room, straying just a little closer to the blinds than was necessary, as if she could somehow absorb information from the glass, or through it.
After a couple of hours, she got up and tore out of the room suddenly. Dane was confused, until he heard the water running. After a little while she came back, without the showercap, her hair bright and vivid and even. She sat down heavily on the couch without giving him a second look. She refused a drink after her second one, and Dane went to bed leaving her on the couch, staring into space, clenching her fist periodically. He realised he’d never seen her go to bed since she’d been here. He wondered when she slept.
Part 4
