Reckless: Season 2: Betterment - Act 3
by redmoon
Betterment - Act 3
Logan held his hands firmly on the steering wheel of his car. Looking with a frown at the street signs he passed, he watched as the pleasant looking grass median was replaced by highway dividers and the not so pleasant rust-red railroad tracks of the IRT line which came to the surface North of 96th Street on Park Avenue.
Soon Park Avenue itself came to the river and Logan found himself crossing out of Manhattan into the South Bronx. It wasn’t long before he had found 143rd street East and pulled his car to a halt by the curb.
The sun was setting and Logan opened his door so the car light would come on. He read the address again and locked his car door, taking his briefcase with him. He had called ahead to inform her he was coming this evening, but hadn’t gotten an answer. He had decided to come anyway. He couldn’t win this case if he wasn’t willing to meet his client. And if he didn’t win this case, Logan had a feeling he would soon be carrying his possessions in a cardboard box.
He got to the steps of the apartment building when, in the dim light, he saw someone blocking the door.
The boy was maybe sixteen, slouching yet watchful. One glance at Logan’s suit and briefcase told him he wasn’t here to buy anything. Logan tried to squeeze past him but the boy, surprisingly tall for his age, put his shoulder in the lawyer’s path.
“You the building inspector?” he asked, his stance firm enough to block Logan effectively. “Took your goddamn time, didn’t you?” Without a moment’s hesitation the boy took his arm and pulled him into the building, straight to the elevator doors.
Logan wanted to protest, but he was caught off-guard by the elevator doors, standing ajar and leading to the empty elevator shaft. Somewhere above a light was flickering desperately, trying to light the shaft but failing. Logan frowned.
“You see this?” the boy asked angrily. “My little brother nearly died playing in the hall outside out apartment.” Logan opened his mouth again to protest, but the boy grabbed his arm again and hauled him a little ways down the hall to the stairwell. Logan looked up and could see nothing, just a gaping void rising into the distance.
“The circuit blew,” the boy said with annoyance, “and nobody’s bothered to fix it. All we need is a new fuse — but the landlord doesn’t care enough to buy one: Use the elevator, he said.” The boy was clearly very angry and Logan could understand it, he realized as he looked up the stairs cloaked in darkness: he would have to climb those stairs to the top. Going up might be challenging, but coming down could be deadly.
Logan seriously considered teleporting, but a side-glance at the boy told him he wasn’t likely to be alone any time soon.
“Aren’t you going to write any of this down?” he demanded, relinquishing Logan’s arm and deepening his frown.
Logan set his briefcase down at the base of the stairs and pulled a small notepad from his jacket pocket. “Uh, actually, I’m not the building inspector.” He flipped a page in his notebook. “I’m here to see a Mrs. Mira Washington...”
The boy’s anger shifted to suspicion. “You with the tax people?”
Logan paused uncertainly. “No... I’m her lawyer. I’m here to conduct an interview so I can give her adequate representation in court.”
“Why’s she going to court?” the boy demanded, crossing his arms.
Logan’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. Lawyer-Client privilege. “I actually can’t tell you that. If she chooses to discuss the matter–”
“What’s this about,” an accented voice said from behind the stairwell. Out of the darkness into the dim light offered by the lobby, a sleek looking Puerto Rican wandered cooly, discarding his glowing cigarette and stepping on it in silence.
Logan’s body tensed. He had been around enough vampires to know them when they were near. Human witness or not, if this vamp attacked, Logan was going to defend himself.
“This man says he’s a lawyer,” the boy explained, as if the vamp hadn’t been listening to the entire conversation.
“We don’t need no lawyers here,” the man stepped further into the light, closer than Logan was comfortable with, and tapped another cigarette from a pack. He held it between his lips and looked up and down Logan’s khaki suit. “The law,” he said emphatically, looking all around them into the darkness, “doesn’t see this place. Go home.”
Logan watched him for a moment as he lit his cigarette and let his breath cover the lawyer’s face. Logan ground his teeth. “Well, unfortunately, it can’t be helped. Mrs. Washington has been charged with a crime and is in need of expert defense.” He picked up his briefcase and started up the stairs, regardless of the darkness.
With a sudden snarl, the Puerto Rican vamped out and snatched Logan by the back of his blazer, pulling him from the stairwell and throwing him to the floor. “You stay away from Momma Love, you hear me?”
Logan fought his instinct to vaporize the vamp and composed himself, slowly getting to his feet and brushing himself off as if he had merely tripped. The vamp, he realized, had his game face on and yet the boy didn’t seem to care. Logan pondered momentarily whether he too was a vampire, but decided against it.
After a moment of standoff, the vamp pulled his cigarette from his mouth and bared his teeth, drawing closer to Logan in the dim light, emphasizing his vampiric features with a growl. Logan stood his ground.
“You’re not afraid?” the vamp asked mockingly, his yellow eyes glaring at the human from beneath a contorted brow.
Logan shrugged. “I’ve seen scarier things in my daughter’s diary.”
The vamp hissed, his breath smelling like death. His face returned to human form and he drove his fist into Logan’s gut, then drove his knee into the lawyer, grabbing him by the collar and shoving him from the stairwell into the lobby.
Logan held onto his briefcase and his balance, keeping on his feet and managing not to show signs of pain. He had resolved himself not to expose his magic here. Don’t mix business and... other business. The two worlds must remain as separate as he could keep them, even if the vampires didn’t feel the same way. If a normal human lawyer couldn’t get past this guard, his firm couldn’t expect him to either.
With one last metaphorically burning glance at the vamp and the boy standing beside him, Logan strode out of the apartment and got back into his car. This was going to be more challenging than he had thought.
Tawnie’s hand scribbled her signature over the line, then found the space for the date, scribbled that in, then initialed in half a dozen places. She turned the page and found a whole new array of spaces and empty boxes. Soon her signature filled them all. She harbored no resentment for the long bureaucratic process: it was the engine which kept the whole machine moving. Even if people didn’t know it, bureaucracy was the real intention. The real goal. It was the truth behind all the silly notions of happiness and freedom. A society could accomplish anything it wanted, absolutely anything, so long as there was enough paperwork to sign.
The Requerimiento, the notification to all indigenous peoples that they had been conquered by Spain, was read in Spanish to each native village before the Conquistadors took Mesoamerica in the fifteenth century.
A complete and notarized correspondence was kept between Auschwitz Administrator Karl Bischoff and the furnace maker Topf, detailing the need to increase the number of crematoria to five.
Tawnie’s hand scribbled her signature rapidly and with care. History showed that evil was only criminal if there was improper paperwork filed. With the last page signed, the hand came down to collect the pages. The white-suited figure stacked the pages and pumped a staple into the top left corner.
Tawnie admired the simple demon. He wasn’t all concerned with fear and death and destruction. He had the patience which was lacking in so many of the Ancient Ones. He knew that a job well done was worth ten failed apocalypses. And his methods payed off, having successfully crashed the market only a few weeks ago.
“Thanks Tory,” Tawnie smiled, folding the contract into its dossier and sliding it back into the appropriate drawer. The figure in the white suit and boater hat nodded gratefully and touched the end of his cane to his hat’s brim. He turned and left the new reception desk of Wolfram and Hart’s new New York office.
There wasn’t really a call for much business here. Since the devastating Civil War almost two years ago, demon and vampire clientele were hard to come by in the city that never sleeps. But there was one thing that New York had that Los Angeles didn’t.
Tawnie glanced to the clock on the wall behind her desk and then to the elevator doors. As one set closed on the corporate corruption demon, finished now his business of dissolving Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, the other set opened. Out strolled a sober looking Logan Kilpatrick.
Logan looked around at the lounge chairs and potted plants which were being placed around the room. There was artwork hanging on the far wall and the receptionist was already looking quite at home.
He looked her up and down, unable to hide his disapproval of the entire situation. Tawnie, her name tag said. She looked to be in her mid fifties, her hazel hair sporting a few tasteful greys, hanging about her shoulders. She wore an odd dark red blouse with small white flowers and a white lace collar. She was busily shifting papers from one pile to another, adding her signature and pressing a date stamp to each one.
“Mr. Kilpatrick,” she said without looking up, “is there something I can do for you?”
“I wasn’t able to actually get into the building to see my client,” he said with irritation. It was embarrassing, but hopefully it would draw some much needed attention to such a problem. If he hadn’t already been aware of vampires, that encounter could have gone very differently.
“You’re not going to let one little vampire scare you off, are you?” she said, still not looking up. She jammed her stamp down onto the paper and slid it over into the next pile. Logan stood with his jaw hanging open. He finally blinked once his eyes began to sting.
“Uh... what?” he managed.
Tawnie finally looked up. She frowned then looked back down at a master sheet she had off to one side. “Mrs. Washington – she lives in a part of the Bronx with quite a few vampires. You may have to use your powers to get in.” Her tone was nonchalant and somewhat disinterested, as if she had an infinitely tall stack of things more worthy of her time than Logan Kilpatrick. Again Logan was stunned.
“You... you know—” he let the statement hang for a moment, “...about that?” he finished with confusion.
Tawnie sighed and stood, setting her pen down with deliberation. “Mr. Kilpatrick, let me introduce myself. I am Tawnie Fischer. From now on I’m your liaison to the Senior Partners. You were chosen to remain with this firm after the merger... well it wasn't because of your decades of experience. Or your charm. You have any questions and concerns which you might ordinarily bring to the Senior Partners, you will now bring them to me. Understood?”
Logan’s eyes shifted uncertainly. “The Senior Partners... of Wolfram and Hart, I expect you mean?”
Tawnie nodded with irritation. “Of course.” She opened the bottom drawer of the cabinet behind her. From it she drew a large plastic container. “Your old senior partners were offered severance packages they couldn’t refuse.”
Logan slowly looked down to the contents of the plastic container. It wasn’t clear for a moment what he was looking at and his expression conveyed this. Tawnie was kind enough to rephrase. “They couldn’t refuse to have no more than this much severed.”
Heartbeat. Logan recoiled from the container as the forms of three human ears became clear. He bared his teeth in disgust and looked to Tawnie with revulsion. Holy fuck! his mind screamed. His stomach turned.
Tawnie smiled, sitting back down. “Welcome to Wolfram and Hart.”
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