by Reid Astor
"All of Ray’s files are open on the laptop," Lars gestures to the open, beaten-looking laptop plugged in and set diagonal of the dresser, still not deigning to turn around- Niklas is thankful for it. He stays there, flicking a cigarette in one hand and a phone in the other. “After that, though, there’s something else you gotta know.”
He paces across the room and takes a seat at the vanity, ignoring the ghastly reflection of himself slipping into view as he opens the laptop wide and takes in the array of information before him. Lars has already set it out in windows cascading, and every single filename is in a formulaic code determining date and case- and his father's name.
There must be a dozen files open before his eyes.
It takes his breath away for a moment. He wants to ask Lars how they didn't tie all of this to him or talk to his mother, didn't even pull a thing on his past, but he halts himself and instead twitches a finger to the mousepad. He expands the topmost window.
It appears to be a scanned black-and-white polaroid of his father at some sort of event. He is smiling, stiffly, looking downwards as if someone has just embarrassed him- and even then his chiseled features stick out in hard relief against the light of the flash. Beneath that scan Niklas can pick up the text of what appears to be a testimony.
"-can't be assumed just what his intentions were, but one can conjecture that he meant to get appeal to a guest at the party. Baranov was escorted by a number of individuals, each of which has been linked to the criminal conglomerate of one Svetlana Morris, nee Dobrynina, as per usual conduct. During the duration of the occasion, Baranov-"
He stops reading and flicks to another page, a little unnerved to be seeing his own name here- somehow it’s strange even now to remember it’s his father’s name. Svetlana had him in a choke hold. Not surprising.
The next file to come up is a heavy annotated phone transcription. He zooms in, scanning over all the notes before he starts on the dialogue itself. It's mostly indiscriminate scrawling of words- 'subterfuge' and 'manipulation', but at the very topmost left corner is an orderly line in all caps: 'BARANOV, ALEXEI D. FROM BACCHUS TRADE WAREHOUSE NORTHEAST DISTRICT COUER TO UNKNOWN'
'NOT MORRIS???'
The text goes on to say:
'UNKNOWN FEMALE: I can't guarantee anything about a sum like this, Alexei. It's hefty.
BARANOV: You know you're the only one I can turn to. I can't trust anyone with this money. Not even Anna- I fear for Anna. They're closing in. They've got- they've got my son.
FEMALE: Then contact the authorities.
BARANOV: (Long silence) How could you suggest that? They would kill them both, Anna and my son, in seconds. What do you want from me? Half of it?
FEMALE: You're telling me your son is already lost. Ruined.
BARANOV: Whether he is criminal or not, he is my son.
FEMALE: Alexei, I'm going to call a lawyer.
BARANOV: You- no, you told me-
FEMALE: I did. It's not what you think. Your son is going to be fine. I'm going to call you in two days and tell you where you need to go, and we're going to take that money off of your hands along with all the evidence on it.
END OF CALL'
"The money that went missing from Lana's op when he was away," Niklas murmurs into the screen. “What did they follow up on this?”
He shifts uncomfortably, hearing Lars get up and walk around to behind him, lackadaisically following the dialogue down the screen with his eyes. It makes his skin prick to have the man this close to him again, but he resolves to go on, "My mother gave it to him. He had it all along. Is that what this is?"
Lars just nods. "That's what it looks like. Pull the next file."
He does, and blinks at the next document that comes up. It's been a while since he even laid eyes on something like this- it's a legal document drawn up by none other than Daniel DeLane. His eye dashes across the page. "A trust fund," he murmurs. "He made it untouchable. And didn’t even tell me." His hand curls into a fist. The nerve of DeLane…
"Your trust fund," Lars says from behind him. "Which you will only inherit on the condition that Lana is either behind bars or dead, and you are no longer up in the gang business. Safely placed in the hands of an anonymous trustee, a dummy company, really. And hey," he snorts, “you’re halfway to inheriting it.”
"Why couldn't they have just told me?" But even as he says the words, he draws back to the date of the conversation, scrawled at the top right corner. Six years ago. He'd only just barely gotten his life together six years ago. He sighs. "… I guess not."
"If we're talking about the sum of money that your mom took from Svetlana, it would be hard to trust about just about anybody with that shit," the man says, sauntering back to the window. "Probably you- nah, definitely not you."
He feels a bristling anger creep into his head, and doesn’t ask, but Lars goes ahead anyway, musing to himself almost chirpingly. "Yeah, nah… Lana ran a shit ton of blow through that store back in the day- that's a fair sum of cash. You were a gang fighter. And you took your own eye out, for Christ knows what. Anyone would assume that if you got enough money you’d just blow it on drugs."
It's tempting to tell Lars the whole story to it, but he bites his tongue back. There's something to that memory that he wants to keep safe, to himself. Between him and the people who were with him that evening. "Why couldn't you have just given me these files? Don't tell me you just wanted to get me alone."
"No BS, Nikky? Someone in your shop is watching you," Lars says. When Niklas looks, his back is still to him, that church is still clambering up to the nape of his neck, reaching zenith at the cross and crown and the ribbon of Latin running across his shoulder blades. "Earlier today Lana's goons busted in on me and told me to stop helping you. So I got this," he turns round, pointing to the burn scab Niklas noticed so intimately before. “Yeah, how would anybody know I'm helping you unless they found the shit I gave you? I know how to cover my tracks."
Niklas peruses the staff roster of the Ishmael in his mind, and frowns. "DeLane?" He suggests, not sure how he feels about Etburn snitching on him. On one hand, well, he would, especially if he suspected Niklas of lying to him about his interest in the gang activity. On the other hand, he just seemed too candid to.
Lars makes a 'click' noise, imitating a gun. "Nope. Got that weasel in a chokehold with that material. Funny how you can blackmail someone for blackmail. Karma at its finest."
"He can easily go behind you and have Madam Morris take care of you," Niklas mutters, annoyed by his serquedry. "He's a lawyer, not an idiot."
"Implying those categories are mutually exclusive," the man snorts. "DeLane is all but working for the police now, and more than happy to help put away Lana if it puts him back in business. I put Rayleigh on it. So it's not DeLane. Nope, it’s probably that fence of ours."
"And why couldn't you put Rayleigh on my case as well?"
Lars turns on him, eyes narrowed. "Because I'm here."
"I don't want you here."
"Is that so, Nikky?" he asks, flicking his cigarette out the window and holding his arms akimbo. Post-coitus, Lars' eyes are hooded and tired, but he keeps his posture. "I'm free. Ray's not, nobody else is."
He looks up at the man, studying his expression. "You said earlier that you loved me. Was that true?"
Lars brings a hand to his mouth quickly enough, something wincing in his expression, and he clears his throat and looks away. "Ah- Well, shit, Nikky-" he shuts his eyes for a moment, seeming to collect himself evenly in a moment, before bringing his hand down and cocking his head back. "Yeah."
"You haven’t known me for so long," he says, sternly. "But if that's true, if you love me, then I want you to keep your hands off of me." The man looks like he’s just been punched, but Niklas continues, weaker than he'd like, "I'll pay you. On my own terms. If you love me, that should be enough."
"That's not-"
"Not fair?" He looks up, feeling the anger spark up from the tired remnants of ene
rgy in his mind. "Do you want to talk to me about not fair, Verdura?" He spits, raising himself and the etches of red and green and purple all across his forearms. He ignores the split of agony that jolts up his insides from the abrupt movement. "Fuck you."
Lars backs off at that, a bitter twinge on his lips as he sits down on the bed, crossing his legs over each other and looking over him. "Sure, I'm content to admire you from afar. Just -"
"Just nothing. You're a piece of shit, you’re nothing. If you don't want to help me anymore, fine, I will survive without you. But if you still want to stay, it's by my rules."
"Just," the man says, undeterred, "it's a pity you didn't enjoy it."
He moves fast- painfully fast.
Lars doesn't make a sound, but his nose does, satisfyingly, as it meets his knuckles. Niklas keels over almost immediately, feeling the pain intensify, almost squelch like a scab reopening inside him. He hits the bed on his side, clenching his stomach, hard, and hears the man's body fall off a moment later.
When he looks over the bed, Lars is on the ground and cupping his nose in both hands- but the stream of blood running down his chin is unmistakable. There's a vicious look in his eyes, and Niklas sees the glimpses of a grin. "Jesus," the man says, voice thick with pain and what looks like a noseful of blood.
Jesus may forgive you, but I won't, Niklas thinks, before rolling back on his side and swallowing back the lump in his throat that's arisen. He tries to fight off the nasty feeling rising in him for lying in this bed again, but in the end decides it knows what's good for him and rolls off back to the laptop, ignoring the man altogether.
He flips to a new tab and says- or rather, thinks aloud- "So you took me here because Mada- Svetlana appears to not approve of our private correspondences about my father, but that doesn't matter anymore, because she knows- just about everything, doesn't she? Is it dangerous for me now in my own shop? Is that what you're saying?"
He turns. Lars is still cradling his own nose and now has blood dripping down his chest, a thin line rolling down to his abdomen. Without a word, the man picks himself up and walks himself to the bathroom with an almost alarming, slow dignity. Niklas thinks, dully, The red really does bring out his eyes.
Without a real answer from him, Niklas rubs his lightly aching knuckles and turns back to the laptop as the sound of running water fills the hotel room.
The file on screen is a criminal dossier on Svetlana Dobrynina. Her young self is every bit as beautiful as he imagined she would have been from looking at her, but certain features hand sneaked in to catch him off guard- for example, the slight upturn of her nose, or how her hair fell into classic-style curls tumbling against her neck. There's a foxish smile in her face, like she's laughing in the middle of tasting something sour.
It occurs to him from looking at this picture that Svetlana probably never forgave his father for siding with Anna. What a strange thing to hold on to after so many years.
When Lars emerges from the bathroom, holding a bloodied towel to his nose, Niklas turns and says, "Why is she really renovating the store? What's in it for her? She could run a trade in it, under construction or not. Why send a whole construction crew in?"
He raises an eyebrow and sets himself down on the bed, keeping there. "Best guess?" He says through the towel, gravelly voice still nasal- Niklas bets, with immense satisfaction, he won't be breathing through his nose very well for a couple days. "The money is in there somewhere and she's breaking the damn thing down to find it. Your father probably tipped ' er off."
"He wouldn't do that," he says, putting his hand down on the dresser. "Would you tell a woman anything about your stolen life savings if she already had your son and wife in tow?"
By the look on his face, the answer is a vehement no. "Well, then, my guess is as good as yours, Nikky. Maybe she just wants to fuck with you the way your dad fucked with her. Full cycle fuck conga."
"There's something to the shop. Years ago, she insisted on helping me fix it up, setting me up there-"
"She wanted to tangle you up in bullshit to have you where she wanted you. Your mom's coffeeshop was the easiest way, and a goddamn poetic one at that. What better fat-ass middle finger to your dad could there be?"
"But she didn’t know about the money."
"Not then; now, though- I'll call it an opportunity. So I cross-checked this with Ray- at this point all we need is to plant surveillance in your store so we can record the operation going through, then bring over our construction guys to testify-" Lars touches his nose, and seems to regret it immediately and put the towel back on.
"I could get Novik to talk." With some persuasion, Niklas thinks, but his hand is being forced here. At the bewildered look he gets, he adds, "Etburn Novik- The fence you put in."
Lars nods, takes off his towel and looks into the large blotch of red that's spread over its surface. "Your right hook's a bitch, you know that? Even if you can't aim for shit."
"No depth perception," Niklas says indifferently, "I just have to keep going until my fist meets face. So what do we do now?" He asks, crossing his arms and sitting back, trying to look as unaffected as possible when his insides are still whimpering.
The man frowns, cocking his head to the side and looking at him. "You 'aight? Your eye-"
He feels the well-timed shot of pain climb up his insides, but forces himself to sit perfectly still. "I'm fine."
Lars gets to his feet so suddenly that his heart skips, and in a second he has a paperweight from the desk in his hand and outstretched, ready to strike- the man freezes in place, sardonic smile on his face and pathetic towel still pressed to him. "I'm going to kiss you, Niklas," Lars says, slowly, "and then I'm going to get dressed and leave, if you'll let me, to get something to eat, something for this," he waves the now mostly-soaked towel in hand, "and most likely a bottle of whiskey."
"Don't kiss me," Niklas says, severely. "Just get out."
"Do you want anything?"
"Not from you."
"You're cold, signor," the man says coolly, turning and going for his bag to dress. Niklas keeps an eye on him the entire time, watching as he takes out a black t-shirt in severe contrast to all his common button-ups, and instead of going for his holster sticks his gun in the back of his jeans. With a wallet and a jacket next, he's done, giving a small snap of the fingers by way of farewell as he slips out the door.
As soon as he hears it click closed, Niklas exhales and pushes himself up, taking gingerly steps towards the door at his own time. He double bolts it shut, feeling like he's laying down the reinforcements to a private fortress in that. It like the ropes on his entire psyche are cut loose the second Lars isn't in the room.
That done, he lowers himself upon Lars' travel bag, running a hand over the leather lining and the buckles and the number of outside compartments, searching.
It's relatively new for a bag, unbranded and unassuming, but also packed to bulge with items: clothes, a toothbrush, spare cash, a Swiss army knife, a lighter, condoms and lube (he flinches), a contact lens container, two unlabeled bottles of medication, a marked-up map of Couer, and two unopened packs of cigarettes. It occurs to him that it's strange that it could be such a no-man's bag- for the kind of man Lars is, he'd expect more trash.
The only thing with any sort of personal or distinctive style is a note at the bottom of the bag on the back of a receipt, crumpled and worn but looking like it's been smoothed over a great deal of times. There is a scrawl across is a disjointed conversation in blue pen between a decidedly loopy and feminine hand and a more pointed scribble, and that's been scribbled over angrily in black- he holds the receipt up, tries to decipher the words in blue-
"Three weeks" - The woman's.
"Tomorrow" - Lars'.
"No" - Lars'.
"---rothe wil ne--r f---- hi- favor yo-'--- ---- ----" - in the woman's hand, scribbled out angrily in black.
The blue is old, he can tell, but the black is far fresher, and far more forceful- two words he can
recognize in Lars' handwriting.
"FUCK YOU."
Niklas frowns, and turns the receipt over. It's for a Vesper martini and a glass of Johnny Walker at some random bar, dated the night before he met Lars. He memorizes the script, compelled to for some inexplicable reason. Could the woman have been Rayleigh? He know it wasn't Svetlana- Lars just doesn't seem to harbor such malice against the old woman, no matter what she's done.
Stuffing the receipt back to the bottom of the back and making it look as if it's never been displaced, he raises himself. He stuffs on a jacket and shoulders his own bag and leaves.
The journey down the hallway and stairwell goes quietly, every footstep muffled by the carpet, and at the soonest moment he draws through the fire exit and climbs slowly down the rest of the way down a ladder into an alleyway, not wanting to risk meeting Lars on the street. It's dark- so dark he can't see but can only hear the trash and puddles beneath his boots as he walks as fast as he possibly can.