Jack Spicer wanted transportation from the airport to the Brown Palace Hotel. He wanted to keep the car on call until whenever 'the event' finished up. The Ziggy Stardust Cab Company took this in good part. A professional outfit but the sort-of professional outfit that seems small even just talking to a guy on the phone. How easy to imagine that gravel-stained voice belonging to a lone man in a scrubby slubby office where the blinds don't quite close all the way looking at a coffee-stained calendar and making by hand in scrunched writing the appointment. How easy to imagine that gravel-stained voice belonging to a certain kind of guy, down on his luck idealist, and the only kind of good there is in the world is a job well done, and if he doesn't personally, then well maybe someone else.
And so transport from the airport is provided. They'd asked him when his flight was getting in, if he'd be needing someone to meet him at the gate, and so it was Flood either finds himself faced with a lanky man of indeterminate ethnicity (but something Middle Eastern, Third World, don't look twice) holding a sign that says Jack Spicer just outside the gate and security, or he finds himself faced with a lanky man of indeterminate etc. etc. waiting for him in the cab circle, sign not visible until Flood appears, and then the man who has that look that smokers get when they're thinking about a smoke but aren't yet smoking, an off wool-gathering look, gives Flood a keen sort've look and holds up that Jack Spicer sign.
The car itself is unmarked, gunmetal gray, a lincoln town car that's seen better days, that is without distinction and has tinted (reinforced?) windows, and the cab-driver opens the back door for Mr. Spicer.
FloodThere is a warehouse and beside that warehouse, one of many owned by the transportation company that uses it, there is their central headquarters where they often meet clients for the kind of negotiations that Flood has intimated he is in town for.
That is their destination, but this isn't one of the companies that Flood has a subtle hand on. That's not necessary. He isn't planning on getting out of the cab until they are finished.
He gives its destination as the address they are headed toward, though, when he meets the driver. It's the same address already on the order for the car that might or might not be scribbled into a calendar box between "Denver Airport" and "Brown Palace Hotel," and waits for them to pull away from the curb and be on their way.
Next he asks, "Do you mind if I sit up front?" It's not a question. He follows it up with a rationale for such a seat: "I get terribly car sick," begins (continues) Flood's long and drawn out lie. His con. His manipulation.
It is night and it is the curb where Flood finds the town car, black leather a weekend bag with blue and grey striped straps, charmingly warm and hanging on his suit-clad hip. He looks unruffled from flight, yes, but this looks to be the kind of man that would be unruffled (could never be).
Flood[ Intelligence + Alertness ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
ghost cabThey're not supposed to let people sit up front. Most cab companies make a big deal out of it. Especially these days. Didn't you hear, man? Some guy over at Yellow Cab, he picked someone up at Union Station and they found the cab three blocks away down an alley and the guy's head was -- there was no fucking head. There was just -- anyway, didn't you fucking hear? And the last time anybody saw that cab fucking this woman was talking her way into the front. Don't let them sit in the front.
There are less colorful stories about why not to let anybody sit up front, of course. Best to keep things professional. Best to make sure nobody will puke in your lap. Best to be less likely to be side-stabbed, eh?
The guy with Ziggy Stardust doesn't seem to be too phased by the request. His lashes flicker and he shrugs even before Flood finishes his rationale, though once he's heard the rationale he looks: mute. That's the word. Deliberately mute. Unpeels his lips enough to say:
"That'll be fine, Mr. Spicer. Bit of a mess up front."
He has an accent that isn't common or necessarily what one expects from a cabdriver who looks like -- what'd he say his name was? He did not. But anyway -- his accent isn't common or what one would expect, but Flood, attuned sharply to whatever might be worth noticing, knowing, tonight: he places it after a moment or two. French-Italian. The Rhône-Alpes region, eh? Be specific.
The 'bit of a mess' seems to include a number of kleenexes, some pornography, some cheetoh bags and some line-ruled notebooks. There's also a rubber hand, a pair of running shoes. Detritus. The cabdriver stows these things away.
Hanging from the mirror is a cross, something like you'd buy for twenty five cents down in a barrio.
The car smells clean, though.
Flood"Thank you," in English.
About that man who seems unflappable? Flood does seem a man. An expensive ruse, one many Sabbat would no doubt scoff at, but one that Flood seems to think necessary. His skin is enlivened. He breathes. He blinks. He moves as a living man does. It probably makes that moment of contemplation in which the cab driver seems not too phased even shorter. And Mr. Spicer ends up sitting up front where he wishes to sit.
By the time the driver is done ferreting away his many belongings Flood has also managed to place that accent. In fact he pinpoints it and, a moment later, is speaking to the man in Italian. A different dialect, of course, Calabrian to be specific, but he does so with a level of familiarity. "Am I placing your accent correctly?" As if he isn't as sure as he truly is. "Along the Rhone? In the shadow of the Alps? We had a regular customer, at my father's place, who always would speak of missing the countryside."
"I hope you don't mind," and now he repeats himself, "but I recognize the accent and always love an excuse to speak in my father's tongue," a moment of feigned hesitation as he waits for the man's consent to continue on in Italian.
Flood, for his part, does not seem to notice just what had just inhabited the seat he now does. Only makes a note to have his suit dry cleaned.
ghost cabThe candriver does not come alive at the sound of his native tongue. There is no sudden flush of warmth; no glow to his eyes; no wariness, either. No pleasure. Just surprise, a startled-little 'plash of it, followed by an easy smile. The smile is not expansive.
"Seatbelt, Mr. Spicer," and he is clearly thinking that this slim sleek stiletto of a man, dark-haired man, darker-than-dark man, this man who breathes and has some dealings to get to at a transport warehouse, this man is a talker. He is clearly wondering how much he is expected to participate in the conversation.
He does switch to Italian, wrong-side-of-the-border Italian, but Italian. "You do place me very exactly; it is impressive! What custom did your father deal in?"
They're driving now. Dark streets, dark streets, all limned in the devil-red of tail-lights, the bright-star yellow of head-lights.
ghost cabooc: candriver? ahem, cabdriver.
Flood"He always wanted to be the life of the party. He decided to buy himself a place in the perpetual state of one," and Flood again complies. He pulls on his seat belt. Fastens himself in at the man's request. Command? It must have been a request. The way he's slow about it, only doing so once he has answered his last question, says he considers it to be one.
Does Flood wish to talk? Oh, he certainly does. Mr. Spicer does, at least, and that is the name he wears and the costume that speaks toward him.
"How long have you been a driver? Since you came over?" The last part said like it's a familiar phrase, coming over, meaning so much more than the visit or short trip many Americans would think of it as. No, he means a trip across the pond.
ghost cab"Eight years," the cabdriver says, and it seems as if he might just leave it there. Spare-spoken man, this one. But Mr. Spicer has expressed a desire to hear his father's tongue, so he continues with, "I do not miss over there too much. There, a fiancée who liked my brother better, here, a steady job and steady friends, and I am still near the mountains. But driving is a family calling," he adds that in--almost hastily. As if to forestall Flood asking him if he was a doctor back in 'his' country.
FloodThe man says all this. He shares. And Flood might continue getting a feel for him, learning about him through the mix of small talk and the progressively invasive questions he could keep on asking. He doesn't, though, instead finally falling silent in the passenger seat as he watches Denver sweep past on the roadside.
They eventually arrive outside the place where the evening's true programming will begin.
"You can park just over there."
Flood points to the curb outside the fenced in parking lot of the warehouse. He seems to be gathering himself, straightening his cuffs, checking his tie, sitting up in his seat to get out, but once all this is finished he turns and looks the man in they eye. Locks eyes with him, there, his face suddenly having turned intense and focused. Eyes narrowed. Severe. He'd learned long ago that such a look helped draw his prey's gaze and that served to make all this that much easier.
"You are going to fully and honestly answer my questions, my friend, is that understood? Your answers will be kept in the strictest of confidences." The sudden shift comes with words that are no longer friendly or curious, but commanding and evocative of an interrogation.
[ Manipulation + Leadership: Dominate (Mesmerize). Dropping a Willpower. ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) [WP]
ghost cabThe cabdriver seems glad for the silence. Or, no - glad. That is too strong a word. The cabdriver seems used to the silence. The silence envelopes him: gargoyle-he, someone who watches and says nothing, but can be persuaded to indulge.
They drive. He can park just over there.
He does park just over there, and then there's that sharpening, that scraping-up of intensity, and Flood is a Personality, and the Personality all ringing like a knife does indeed draw the cabdriver's eyes, and -
That's all.
"I do understand."
Flood[ Perception + Empathy ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
FloodThere is a moment, a single beat, that raises the vampire's suspicion. Makes him curious, as he holds the man's gaze, turning his head to the side and watching as he follows it. Takes in, from his peripheral vision, how the man is sitting and how strongly the will he is working upon him might have taken hold.
"Wonderful," Flood says a moment later, bending over the bag that now sits at his feet. In that moment of routine and mundane action, though...
That's when the hook snags.
Flood finds himself glancing up at the cross hanging from that rear view mirror, and then triangulates his vision back to the driver, the way he's sat bolt upright and seems ready to submit under the weight of Flood's will.
Of another stronger will.
And it seems familiar. It seems as if he may have done this before.
'May have', that's enough to set Flood on edge.
He pauses. Leans back down. Zips his bag closed again and leaves whatever he'd been after still tucked away within.
"Tell me a little about the company you work for. How many drivers you have, where you are based, who the owner is... Wouldn't you?" Looking back over at the man again. "Anything out of the ordinary - strange - going on in the past year?"
ghost cabThe cabdriver watches Flood and watches him and watches him and also looks briefly at the cross. The cross that dangles: good-luck, good-Faith, not good-luck enough perhaps - or else how is it a monster would be able to question him against his will? He is frowning, troubled: unhappy. Unhappy when he replies,
"We have five drivers. Rosalba. Myself. Cruz and Cesare. We had six until last September. September, what was it, ninth. Joseph quit. He left a note and took the car. Boss very unhappy about that, huh? That was strange. Both the boss being unhappy and Joseph quitting like that. He liked to talk, Joseph. He liked to compare cars and show off what he had under the hood, huh? A boy, didn't matter how old he was. He was a boy in what he did do." The cabdriver does not look quite so old as to be casting such aspersions: still, he does it. "I myself do try to stay quiet. That is what we do." He sounds so practical, here:
"We are a quiet company. Nobody need know. We do not ask questions and I, I am not that driver, but we do have cars that will not be traced. It's a surprisingly good business, huh? Many people do not want to be followed and are smart enough to know that it is easy to follow a cab or to trace them. We have only once had a problem, huh? And that was last year also. December."
"We have an office in Federal. Just a house, really. Chickens too. The owner ... some broad. I do not know her, my boss is Alonso Abascia. He doesn't drive."
FloodFlood takes it in. His fingers twitch for a moment, then tap on the top of his leg, almost as if he is wishing there was a pen held in them. Yes, that seems to be what he's unconsciously grasping for. As if he wishes he could takes notes, but he doesn't want to take so much of a chance. He restrains himself and continues along his line of questioning.
"Who is the driver? The one who drives for these untraceable rides? And what was the problem last December?" His eyes remain on the man sitting across from him, now. "And what is your name?" He continues, interjecting with that last question, after noting that he had left more than one out, not just his own, and another, the other driver's. All excluded from his listing of names.
ghost cab"My name is Ghaith Etienne." He answers that question first. The name: Ghaith. Arabic. Said with a sort've snarl up-front: Ghh. That hushes out into more. "Last December the problem was very bad." Brief pause; is he fighting the Dominate? Flood may think for a moment that he is. That there is something which is allowing the cabdriver to wiggle free out've the net of Flood's will and Flood's command: a chain, a fence. But then he says: "The problem was very very bad. This creature from the Revelationists, ah, the Friends, you do know, those crazies who live in mines, or uh, a mining town, I do not know. The Friends. This creature from them came and she said that she knew who we had transported and did have all these records and she was going to speak to some of our clients and tell them her records, or, ahem, she knew things because of the following, and she said she would not say anything if we did a special job for her, yes?"
"But did it better than we had done for any of our other clients, and we were not to let Jonson know that we had done it. And a mess, a mess, it was a mess, but I did not have to do any drives for those people."
"The driver who does the untraceable rides? He is - "
Ghaith (jerkily) goes for the glove compartment. It's not a frantic gesture, but he seems very enraptured by his own hand as he does, eyes gone wide, breathing coming a little more quickly.
"He is a very private man, yes? He likes to be called White."
ghost cab
ooc: Er, he goes to OPEN the glove compartment, doesn't 'go for' it.
FloodFlood is rapt for a moment. The normally measured and controlled Lasombra seems thrilled at the treasure trove of information now spilling from his mouth. Listens and takes it all in greedily. And still he looks on to the next prize. The next sealed away secret as he continues.
And then he reaches. Flood is quick to action.
Flood places a hand upon the cab driver's wrist as he reaches. Closes it gently, but firmly, holding it fast and still where it is if he can. With his other hand, giving the one that wishes so badly to write something to do, his hand reaches out to open the glove compartment and inspect its contents.
"What are you grabbing for, Ghaith?" Approximating the unfamiliar name, mimicking the named's pronunciation of it as well as he can, as he looks.
Flood[ Initiative: Dexterity (4) + Wits (3) + 1d10 ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
ghost cab[Ghaith! +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
Flood[ Dexterity + Brawl ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
ghost cab[Dex+Ath.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
ghost cabFlood is quick to action; and Ghaith sees it. He sees it and his pupils go black and large. The Lasombra places a hand upon the cab driver's wrist as he reaches and begins to close his hand: but Ghaith whips his hand away, quickly, quick enough the Lasombra is grasping at air. Flood's persuasion is still in effect, so he says, "The bottle. I need to drink it now."
Flood[ Initiative: +7 ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
ghost cab[+6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )
ghost cab[Hmmmmmmm. What up?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN9 (2, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
ghost cabI need to drink it now, Ghaith says, and then whatever it is he reads in Flood's sharpening-up intentness or perhaps not even that, perhaps just: the situation. Something. Something makes him go, "No!" and clap his hands over his ears, while lurching side-ways (he does not wish to do this) toward the driver's door. He can't open it with his hands over his ears, but that is a problem for a few seconds from now.
FloodFlood seems roused to anger, frustration leaving his hand gripped into a fist, but instead of lashing out with the balled digits or reaching to restrain the man he instead whips him with sharp words that come hissed through bared teeth.
"Be still," but the man has already swiftly covered his ears and despite however effective the simple command might have been, it is a waste of breath and time.
Flood reaches again, reaches out for him intently and at that same wrist - the one closest to him. This time it's to pry his hand away instead of hold it still.
[ Dropping a WP to change his action. Strength + Brawl. ]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
ghost cabThe creature in the passenger seat wearing a dead poet's name is much stronger than Ghaith; there is no contest. He resists anyway, but it is - well. Likely nothing at all: tissue-paper.
Certainly not enough; Flood's fingers on Ghaith's wrist and hand prised unwillingly from Ghaith's ear.
Flood[ Spending 3 BPs to raise Dexterity to 7. Flood is at... 8 BPs total. And at WP 6, just for the record.
Initiative: +10 ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
ghost cab[Uh oh. It's on now.
+6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Flood"Do not make me kill you. Be still," and that final word rings with the power of his lineage's blood, vitae passed down from childe to sire, along with the disciplines taught from mentor to student for literal generations. His attempt to bend the man's psyche with with the strength of his will comes with it, a last ditch effort to tame the man.
[ Manipulation + Intimidation: Dominate (Command). ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
ghost cabThe effect is sudden and complete: like pressing pause, but on a human being, a living thing - he is as still as he can possibly go, even holding his breath to try and contain/control the agitated rise-and-fall of his chest. The cab driver - oh yes, he is very still now indeed.
FloodFlood now turns toward that glove compartment, a moment's reprieve from handling one of the kine in the depths of some tantrum or fit. His fingers, now free to pry, do open it and begin searching within for whatever the man had been reaching for. If it is a bottle of alcohol? He won't be surprised, but he seems to have some inkling it might be something else. That, now that the cab driver has demonstrated some knowledge of resisting Dominate, there might be much more to this driver and his vehicle than meets the eye.
ghost cabA moment's reprieve - but how long a moment? What is the man's nature, eh? He is still being ... Still, shallow breathing giving way to one quick breath, then see, he holds it again, watching Flood with an expression that is not terrified. That is important: not terrified. But it is hopeless, and confused.
The glove compartment has papers (false). A phone. An address book. Some change. A couple menus to restaurants. An old brochure for an exhibit at the Denver Museum of Art. Another accordion pamphlet, this one of edible plants. A wallet, devoid of pictures, Triple A book, papers for a gun (but no gun), and a bottle.
A small bottle, a little smaller than say a soda can and as squat. The bottle is blue. And glass. And unlabeled. The cap is screwed shut.
FloodFlood, while paging through the contents, takes special note of the museum exhibit the brochure's contents explore, but wastes no time looking within for details. There will be less strenuous moments for such research, moments when he isn't sitting beside a verified threat with a gun permit and therefore, he must assume, a gun somewhere in the car.
Flood takes the bottle, shuts the glove box, and slips it into the bag at his feet, directing his attention back to the cab driver and once again finding his eyes - lids pulled back, perhaps even watering from keeping them open (still), with such strictness does he obey Flood's command.
"Just a few more moments of your time, Ghaith, and all this will be over and put behind us," though there's little in the way of reassurance in his tone, circumstances do not mean he can't try to calm the man. And as his voice grows a bit softer, though no less assertive, it takes on an altogether different cadence.
"We are going to talk about what happened that night. The night of the mess. The night you've got sealed away, and you are going to tell me the truth, the truth that has been locked away within. You are going to talk about what happened, what you've been made to forget. We are going to talk about what you did for the Friends and the she-devil that came to you, and you are going to remember what another tried to make you forget, and you are going to tell me that..." speaking more slowly every time he repeats himself, until finally trails off, leaving Ghaith to complete what he begins in those hypnotizing words.
[ Dominate: (The Forgetful Mind)
First roll: Wits + Subterfuge! ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Flood[ Wits + Empathy. Dropping another WP. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 5, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
ghost cabThe cab driver manages to fail to be reassured.
But he does not manage to fail to fall under Flood's will. He falls like a blade of grass come the scythe: and so, too, his own will. He tracks the bottle with his eyes. He has stilled. He need not stay still, hm? He tracks the bottle with his eyes and perhaps there is a note of relief when it is gone. Less relief when his eyes are snared by Flood's again - like Flood's eyes are devil-green.
But once again there is a sense of familiarty as Ghaith lets it take him.
"You are barking up the wrong tree, Mr. Spicer. I do not think that is your name but Mr. Spicer I will still call you until otherwise told. I was there the night the trouble began but I do stay in the background most times. That is why when you called without references I was given to be your driver. I take the more casual fares."
"But that night. Myself and Rosalba we were at the office just waiting around for the boss to pay us. He takes his time sometimes because eh that is what you do when you are a boss. This woman comes." He looks haunted now: he does. "She did do the things I already said but she also had a young man with her, yes?"
"This young man. He had three shadows. I did notice it and he saw me noticing it and took me aside. He asked me if I always noticed things so carefully and I said I was quiet, I saw nothing. He asked me if I wanted to see a trick, huh? And then he ... I do not know what I saw. He opened the air and it bled. His hands were bloody, perhaps he just cut them but no it was the air. And he grabbed me and where the blood fell, it hurt. But then it felt good, you know? And I saw that his shadows had all gone and he had none at all. He told me that it was a secret and I was not to tell."
"He looked into my eyes as you do now and told me not to tell."
"Then she came out of the office where she and the boss and Rosalba they had gone and she called him Carravagio and she did say to make sure that we would not talk."
"I thought that I would die."
"But I did not die, and neither did the boss. He was rubbing his neck I do remember and he could not speak well. So the one with three shadows or no shadows, he gave us bottles and said that if anyone were to ask," his face twitches, "to ask about the drives or anything relating to White or to... To this other place, we were to drink what he had put in the bottle, and nothing else, and we were to do it right away, but to be peaceful in forgetting."
Flood"And you won't die tonight, either, Ghaith. Do you want to know why? I will tell you why..."
"I will tell you what happened, and it will not be what happened, but it will be what you wish to remember. I will wrap you up in a lie and that lie will be the truth, that is what you will know it as, and you will know it and believe it because it is what you wish to remember. It is what will keep you safe, just as I will take away this bottle to keep you safe, Ghaith," he continues, that same steady cadence to his words, that same metronome of syllables and pauses that ticks out as he begins to spin an altogether different night's tale.
"You won't remember telling me of the mess, of your boss, of your comrades behind the wheel. You picked me up in the airport, and I insisted on sitting up front, because of my motion sickness. I asked about your accents and we continued on in Italian, back and forth, you telling me of the Rhone-Alps, and I telling you of how my grandfather fought in the Great War and in the Hundred Days Offensive," Flood continues on.
"I chewed your ear off, distracting you, making you tell me about your fiance and all about your home, and you wavered over the line. That's when a police officer, a boarish pig on a motorcycle, pulled you over and asked for your papers. When he saw your bottle and asked for it, said he could write you a ticket," he says, continuing to craft a night very different from this one that has played out.
"Said he could arrest both of us. Both of us! But I checked my wallet and handed him what he really wanted. What they all really want. A payday. And he left us be, and you thanked me, and we headed on to our destination. Oh, you'll no doubt lie to the boss about all this, but I said I won't say a thing. That my grandfather fought for your country, perhaps beside your own, and that? That makes us blood," a smile and a nod with this altruistic statement.
"You took me to my meeting, and I've just come out, and here I am, Ghaith. Ghaith? Ghaith," his voice sounding a bit annoyed, but there's a smile and a sigh as he shakes his head, pulls open the door to his passenger seat, but only to slam it shut again and hopefully knock him out of the daydream he's having. "Ghaith, are you sleeping? You didn't have another bottle somewhere in here, did you?"
"I'm ready to go to the Brown. Let's get moving," sounding as if he's in a bit of a rush, adjusting his bag as if it's just been set down.
[ Wits + Subterfuge: Dominate (The Forgetful Mind). Dropping yet another WP. Flood is at WP 4. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
ghost cabThe cab driver listens because he must listen, mustn't he? He listens and he watches Flood and he is mesmerized. A man in a dream, a man in a daze. And yet still even now there is a tick of wary caution, of rue, of that quiet reserve he has displayed a desire to stick to throughout. All this, too much noise for him. Ghaith.
Ghaith. Ghaith? Ghaith, and Flood sounds a bit annoyed, a sigh, the door slams shut, and Ghaith's pupil shrinks. He shakes his head, blinking, just like this, just like you or I might blink if we were waking up, startled, look, his eyelids gone long, his eyebrows up like cathedral arches, a hang-dog look. Says, with real embarrassment, "I'm so sorry, Mr. Spicer."
And then, with unease, "No, there is no other bottle. Put that out of your mind." Firm. "And we will drive quickly, yes? One pig cannot be followed by two. It is too unlucky."
He drives Mr. Spicer to the Brown Palace Hotel. He drives him quickly, taking a short cut that is really quite clever; cops do not pull them over.
"Have a good evening," he says, when he drops Flood off at the kerb. Spare, again. English for the first time in a while, professionalism being the watchword.
And after a tip, he drives off. Simple. It was not an eventful fare for Ghaith Etienne.
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