Bar

[The Exodus]

What’s New Year’s without a little bit of champagne? Or scotch? Or that rainbow colored cocktail worthy of some trendy Sex and the City character? Drink the night away. After all, that is what New Year’s is all about, right? Usual Rules Apply Party End Date Will Be Announced Have Fun!

[The Exodus]

OOC: Rowan Leatherby and Catalina Reyes, ftw! BIC:

Santiago Ortiz

Santiago hated New Year’s. It was a time for reflection and self-evaluation. All that bullsh*t that made you feel uglier, less successful, and more depressed than you had any right to be. Or worse. You sat there and made empty promises to be thinner, earn more money, and find love in the next twelve months. Absolute bullsh*t. The best part of the holiday was the alcohol and there was plenty to be had here tonight.

Santiago sat alone in a mirrored room that once, at least a hundred years ago, must have been a ballroom. He was surrounded by people in sumptuous costumes, who chattered and laughed and made silly little toasts.(“To a better year, tomorrow.” “To another year in love.” “To a fresh start.” Salud, L’Chaim, and Bottoms Up, all of you. He wasn’t sure 2012 would be any better than 2011. He expected more of the same these days; he wasn’t in love and he’d long ago made his fresh start in Paris. It was as though the last two years hadn’t happened.

Don’t lie, Santiago told himself. Something had to have happened. Three years ago, you wouldn’t be caught dead here.

It was true. Santiago wondered if this was how rescue dogs felt. Lazy, bored, longing for the days when they had to scrap their way through life. He felt feral, if that was any indication. Like he didn’t belong in this sea of suits and ties and ball gowns; like he should have just stayed home, chugged a beer on the rooftop and watched the fireworks in the distance. Too late for that. Countdown to midnight would start in an hour or two and by the time the clock struck twelve—even if Santiago left now—he’d still be steering his Harley through throngs of drunks.

He missed Spain. He missed the way everyone in his old neighborhood flooded the streets and shared meals and wine, music and stories. There was none of this upper echelon networking; no fake smiles. Real people, who did anything from work at the bank to working the streets, coming together for one hell of a party. Maybe he was romanticizing. Home was always better in hindsight. Anyways, at least in Spain, Santiago had already done the networking bit. He had friends, hook-ups, co-workers, whatever. He knew who he’d be kissing at midnight and who he could bum a cig off of.

He looked up from his drink and for a split moment, he thought he saw Lorenzo Reyes sitting across the bar. There was no mistaking those clear, blue eyes and those alert, odd-shaped ears. Santiago realized what staring at another man across a bar would look like, so he looked away as quickly as he’d caught sight of him. Instead, he found Lorenzo again in the bar-room mirror. Unmistakable. An electrical pulse ran the course of Santiago’s spine. His gang leader was in Paris. Maybe the new year would be different, after all.

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Catalina Reyes

As far as Catalina could tell so far, Paris was clean. It was cosmopolitan like Madrid was, but it was one million people sparse of Madrid and it made finding Lorenzo that much easier. Catalina had scoured alleyways and bars, her hand wrapped constantly around her gun, her eyes peeled and searching. But her brother had yet to turn up and Catalina had yet to sleep a full eight hours. But then a thought struck her like an electric shock: She had checked the usual places. Knowing her brother’s mind, knowing his craft, he wouldn’t frequent the places where he could easily be found. The secluded, dark alleyways and the cheap, anonymous pubs were exactly the locations he could expect to be discovered.

So Catalina started on a quest to find the antithesis of Lorenzo’s usual hideout-type.

There was a New Year’s party at the Tuileries Palace that was bursting at the seams with the hoi-paloi and well-to-do. Everyone drank with peaceful minds there and Catalina got to thinking that maybe this was the kind of place he would hide: crowded, yet elite, still undergoing the restoration process. It just made sense.

She made her way up the steps, clad to blend in. “Name?” asked the man at the door. She almost laughed. Almost. “Reyes.” She looked past his shoulder at the party-goers, teeming happily at the close of the year. “Sorry, mademoiselle, there is no Reyes.” She reached into her purse, slipping bills into his hand. “Check again.” The man smiled and stepped aside, allowing her to pass.

She made a b-line to the bar. Surely Lorenzo could be found there, networking and drinking the night away. And she could convince him to return home.

That was naive wishful thinking. But while she was here, she might as well order something, look more like an attendee than a woman looking for her lost brother. She flagged down the bartender. “I’ll have…” she let her eyes wander over to the back wall, reading the drink options. But the mirror background behind the shelves of alcohol gave her much more satisfying choice—Santiago Ortiz was here. “A rain check. I’ll have a rain check.” She stood and made her way through the throng, putting her lips next to his ear. “Of all the places in Paris, I never expected to find you here, Ortiz.” It fit the overall tone for the night so far.

[The Exodus]

Santiago Ortiz

If Santiago could get a lock on Lorenzo, a feel for how his former boss was behaving, he’d know whether to approach or not. He had two thoughts. The first of which was that despite every dissatisfaction he had with life, Santiago was not ready to die. He had productions to run, friends to support, bills to pay. Nothing was in order; no will, no funeral arrangements. Nothing. He wasn’t so old he could never get married, never have a family—things he didn’t know if he wanted, but would never have if Lorenzo was here to kill him. Santiago was a gangster gone to seed. He wouldn’t have been much good in a fight against Lorenzo these days. His second thought, just as terrifying, was that Lorenzo being in Paris was a good thing. A renewed purpose. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Santiago would just go back a little further, renounce his life in Paris and take up the mantle of a gunslinger once more. Life was getting too quiet anyways. And who was he kidding? Marriage? Kids? Santiago Ortiz was nobody’s house pet.

He watched Lorenzo a bit longer, avoiding his eyes in the reflection of the mirrors. Before he could decide—fight or flight—a strange, buzzing sensation reached one of Santiago’s ears.

“Of all the places in Paris, I never expected to find you here, Ortiz.”

Of all the gin joints in the world… Santiago shifted his gaze in the mirror to see Catalina Reyes pushed up behind him, smirking like a particularly delighted crocodile. Santiago cursed in his head. Gangs were like wolf packs. One did not hunt alone. Lorenzo was the decoy; Lina, the predator. He called a smile to his lips, despite the nausea welling in his stomach, and Santiago turned to look at her. He would lose Lorenzo in the crowd, but clearly, that didn’t matter much anymore.

“Catalina Reyes,” he said. Her name came out as a soft growl. “I could say the same thing about you. I’d buy you a drink, but your husband—not to mention your brother—would probably kill me.”

As if he wouldn’t already. Blood in, blood out. Santiago Ortiz, your number is up.

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Catalina Reyes

Santiago turned towards her and Catalina offered back a sickly, slimy smirk that crawled like some creature onto her lips. It been a long time. So long in fact, that time had changed Santiago’s features. He looked better than he ever did in her time of knowing him. Maybe Paris just had that affect on people. It made her wonder if it had changed Lorenzo beyond recognition.

“Catalina Reyes, I could say the same thing about you. I’d buy you a drink, but your husband—not to mention your brother—would probably kill me.”

Catalina let out a loud bark of a laugh. “My husband? No, he won’t mind. He’s dead.” Catalina gave a noncommittal shrug. The man had died under mysterious circumstances years ago. She never loved the poor b*stard anyway. “So. About that drink.”

[The Exodus]

Santiago Ortiz

Santiago supposed if he had to pick a way to go, this wasn’t so bad. He would die at the hands of a femme fatale, at a professional and physical peak. He imagined his funeral; his chief mourner would undoubtedly be Reese. MaCarthy might serve as a pallbearer. Maybe there’d be others there, people he’d once loved. He could imagine Rachel, crazed by the grief of what might have been, throwing herself over his casket and producing fat, wet stage tears as she professed how much she’d loved him. He could imagine just as easily, her standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Chianna Mimieux after he was interred, taking turns spitting on his grave, leaving behind only Mimieux’s cigarette butt as a marker. He hadn’t made many friends in his time in Paris, but he’d be remembered. That was something. He didn’t have anything in order, but wasn’t that half the point of ending in a blaze of glory? Big finale. Let the rest shuffle on to clean up.

Besides, he couldn’t pick a better setting or cast of characters. Imagine the opera they’d make of this one. Ex-convict brutally murdered by the human equivalent of a black widow in such a lush setting. Christ, it was more melodramatic than Santiago would have ever guessed, during drive-bys and bar-fights that should have done him in years ago.

And he’d go down stoically. Straight-faced. None of that begging for his life bullsh*t. No waffling. He’d finish his drink and let the end come. He’d had a good run. As a gangster, later as a stage manager. Curtain call was inevitable. That smile on Catalina’s lips told him there’d be no encore.

“My husband? No, he won’t mind. He’s dead.”

Santiago was surprised. Not by her lack of emotion, but by the simple fact of the man’s death. A captain of industry with plenty of connections, he would have been useful to the Reyes shipping and criminal kingdoms. Either he’d run his course of usefulness to them or had been insufficiently protected from professional rivals. Or perhaps he hadn’t been sufficiently warned about Catalina herself. Suddenly, Santiago actually worried about his own, perhaps grisly fate. Black widow, indeed.

“So. About that drink.”

Santiago huffed out a laugh, just as noncommittal as Catalina’s laugh and shook his head. He swiveled around at last and indicated the seat beside him.

“Don’t bother ordering sangria,” he told her. “Only a couple bodegas here can serve up something worthy of La Princesa.”

He couldn’t help himself. He was grinning like a man dealing with an old friend and not his potential murderer. He leaned against the bar comfortably to study “La Princesa”. She looked much the same as Santiago remembered her. The same wide-set, dark eyes, untamable, dark hair. But her strategically, almost see-through dress highlighted her femininity in ways Santiago never bothered to notice before. Not never. Usually didn’t. She was the boss’ sister. Off limits. If you wanted to keep your balls, you kept them to yourself. You didn’t try funny business with Lorenzo Reyes’ little sister. Not if you were smart. Her brother was somewhere nearby tonight, but Santiago figured if he was going to die anyways, he might as well enjoy the view. Look at her. Curvy, petite, a young widow. Tempting. He toasted her with his whisky appreciatively after she ordered.

“So. What are we drinking to? Your late husband, maybe? Your stay in Paris?”

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Catalina Reyes

Santiago indicated to the seat beside himself for her to take and she did so quickly. The sooner she got her drink, the sooner she would get Ortiz’s help with finding Lorenzo. That pretty-boy face and devious smirk looked more like a blessing to Catalina than they ever had.

“Don’t bother ordering sangria. Only a couple bodegas here can serve up something worthy of La Princesa.”

Catalina offered a dry smirk. And ordered whatever Santiago was drinking. She didn’t care what it was at this point, but she did watch the bartender carefully as he mixed her drink, watching and examining every piece of ice he dropped in. It was a force of habit, really, especially now that her brother wasn’t here to watch over her now.

“So. What are we drinking to? Your late husband, maybe? Your stay in Paris?”

“Actually,” Catalina said, “I was hoping we could drink to your cooperation. I need your help, Ortiz, believe it or not. So, salud.”

[The Exodus]

Santiago Ortiz

If Santiago could keep Catalina talking, it would postpone the inevitable, give him the chance to make peace with his God or maybe find Reese in the crowd to say goodbye to, signal for help from her. He tried to stay calm; it was all he could do.

“Actually,” Catalina said, “I was hoping we could drink to your cooperation. I need your help, Ortiz, believe it or not. So, salud.”

Santiago lowered his drink.

“Just like old times, eh, chiquita,” he said.

If she was flirting with rival gangsters again, Santiago could do damage control. It was seldom more serious than that with Catalina. Still, the idea of doing gang work, freelance, worried him. He chewed the inside of his mouth. He didn’t know if he could possibly say no. Saying no could mean death, even if saying yes meant selling his soul to a she-devil. He closed his eyes and tossed back the rest of his whisky.

“What’s the catch?”

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Catalina Reyes

“Just like old times, eh,Chiquita?” Santiago said and Catalina rolled her large raccoon bandit eyes. She didn’t need his patronizing, flirtatious growl now. She glanced around and downed her glass of amber liquid.

“What’s the catch?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you there was none. I want your help finding someone, Diego.” Catalina turned to face him now, her face stern and serious. “I’ve been to two countries and five cities and there’s no sign of him. It’s uncanny.”

What if she never found her brother? What if her cross continental venture was all in vain? Or worse, what if her brother was dead.

“I never thought I’d admit it, but I need you, Santiago.”

[The Exodus]

Santiago Ortiz

Santiago knocked on the wood to signal to the bartender that he wanted more whisky. He wondered if he knew Morse Code, just in case this was a trap and he needed to get a message out to someone. Trick was, if anyone else knew the language of knocks and taps. Santiago doubted it. He just look like some drummer. Tappity-tappity-tap-tap-tappity-tappity. Not very discreet; he’d pass.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you there was none. I want your help finding someone, Diego.” Catalina turned to face him now, her face stern and serious. “I’ve been to two countries and five cities and there’s no sign of him. It’s uncanny. I never thought I’d admit it, but I need you, Santiago.”

“How precious.” The bartender gave Santiago another whisky, which he toyed with, passing the glass between his hands. “Let’s skip precious a minute. Who are you looking for? And why should I help you; what’s in it for me?”

Santiago wasn’t a bloodhound. He didn’t work for a pat on the head, a scrap of meat. Please. He wasn’t a gangster anymore or private investigator. Still. He wasn’t cheap. Especially when opportunities like this were both risky and once-in-a-blue-moon. He leaned against the bar, facing Catalina better. MaCarthy would think it hysterical, if he could see Santiago now, his boss, the stage manager, acting like a hardboiled Sam Spade type. It brought a curious smile to Santiago’s lips. Imagine the possibilities. Santiago Ortiz, PI. It sounded like a bad pitch for a cable drama. Ex-con turned cop. Ha. As if. Santiago was looking for someone for Catalina Reyes, chances were the guy would have to be killed at Santiago’s hand at the end. Still, whatever it was, Santiago was intrigued. And of course he couldn’t tell MaCarthy or Reese or anybody. Fine, fine line. Sh*t. He missed having someone to walk it with him.

Once in a lifetime chance, Diego. Shut up and get the details.

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Catalina Reyes

“How precious.” Santiago said through his teeth. Catalina didn’t like it, but after all these years, she would have been shocked if had said anything else. She glowered, swigging her drink and biting hard on the glass until she thought she might break it. “Let’s skip precious a minute. Who are you looking for? And why should I help you; what’s in it for me?”

“I’m looking for Lorenzo. What’s in it for you? I don’t know, how about your life? You tell me, Diego.” Catalina answered sarcastically, crossing her legs in a mockingly dainty fashion. Her eyes flashed dark and serious and she pursed her lips. “You’re the only one I trust to help me, the only I think would have any idea where he is. You saw him last, Diego. Where is he?”

[The Exodus]

Santiago Ortiz

She was going to ruin her pretty, shark teeth if she kept chewing the glass. Santiago had clearly gotten under Catalina’s skin and it felt good. Though of the images he conjured of her biting too hard, shattering the glass, bloodying her gums and lips, he couldn’t say the same. Had he not been holding out for proper payment—you didn’t get something for nothing in Santiago’s experience—he would have pried the glass out of Catalina’s jaws. Old habit, he guessed, trying to protect her. Her and every other damn woman to cross his path. Besides, he was curious. When he jaw muscles unclenched and Catalina spoke, Santiago was not disappointed.

“I’m looking for Lorenzo.”

He was intrigued.

“What’s in it for you? I don’t know, how about your life? You tell me, Diego.” Catalina answered sarcastically, crossing her legs in a mockingly dainty fashion. Her eyes flashed dark and serious and she pursed her lips. “You’re the only one I trust to help me, the only I think would have any idea where he is. You saw him last, Diego. Where is he?”

“Accusing or asking, princesa?” he asked. He sighed wearily and drained his whisky, then signaled for another. “Haven’t seen him. Not since he came to give me his blessing two summers ago.”

Blessing was said a little sarcastically. Lorenzo had given Santiago his blessing after a fashion, but disappeared shortly thereafter. That night, Rachel’s dormitory had been ransacked and Santiago didn’t bother connecting the two. However, after run ins with other Gardunas, he wondered if maybe Lorenzo had—for once—played the decoy in a scheme. He doubted it. Not Lorenzo’s style.

“Took you plenty long to come looking for him. I think this is what the cops call a ‘cold case’,” Santiago said, taking his new drink. “Lucky for you, I’m not a cop. You want me to look for your brother, fine. I’ll play detective. But I’m not doing it for free. Got that? Your little threat was cute, but without big brother protecting you in a foreign country, we both know you couldn’t afford to off the one guy who might be inclined to help you. If you wanna play nasty, I’ll call your bluff and raise you a threat.”

Santiago touched his waistband. On the inside, as usual, there as a small handgun, ready for use in emergency, just as deadly as his usual weapons of choice.

“But, we’re both grown-ups now.” Santiago used the term loosely. Catalina looked like a grown up, but all he saw when looking at her was a self-indulged rich girl with a few underworld connections. “So. Tell me. When did you hear from him?”