Margot
Santa Fe Arts District was unsurprisingly popular with the college-aged group that lived in the city for the University and not much else. Even less surprising was how many cafes and bistros could be found among the bars, venues, and tattoo shops here. The day was warm, with clouds that passed every so often to interrupt the sun. Many students happily took advantage of the mild day to go out for late lunch and drinks with their friends.
Margot didn't have a lot of friends, and those she did have were rather intense. She, instead, went out alone.
One cafe along Santa Fe had a nice patio set up, so Margot set herself up out here. She had her brown hair down around her shoulders, tucked behind ears as usual, and had a suggestion of pink on her nose and cheeks that had little to do with blushing for once, and more to do with how long she'd been at that table so far today with the sun making regular visits. She was wearing a pair of sunglasses, a black long-sleeved shirt to help soak up the warmth from the sky, a pair of simple blue jeans and a pair of equally simple (if not a little beaten up) black sneakers. She sat with a backpack by her chair legs, a cup of coffee and cream in front of her, and a paperback book that looked like it had seen better days. Something about Legends of the Oceans on the cover.
She'd been there undisturbed long enough that she actually looked relaxed for the first time in a while.
Which, of course, could never last for long.
Denver
It was a pretty day. It was the kind of day that people coudl go out and do whatever it was that they wanted to do and, in a popular part of town, it was easy for people to feel at once part of something larger and that they were given a sense of anonymity. The waitresses and waiters here fill drinks and talk about veganism and their selection of craft beers but, for the most part, people exist int heir own little bubbles. People exist, and in this ever-so-tragically hip crowd, you could spot an outsider from fifty paces.
Margot is not an outsider. She actually fits in here as some piece of human scenery that most people happen to be when they are alone and enjoying themselves and do not give the impression that they need a herd of people coming up to them and doing whatever it is that they are want to do.
The problem with Margot not being an outsider, of course, is that Margot is not given the benefit of being an other and therefore unapproachable. That, or the person down the street was not interested in people's social mores. Sees a person who is alone and makes a direct route to that person. He wasn't a bad looking young man, skin wasn't quite as sallow as it had been before. BUt he was young and his hair was dark and his clothing was nondescript. Jeans, tee shirt, hoodie.
Backpack.
Heavy backpack.
Meanders with purpose in Margot's direction.
Margot
[Perception 3 + Alertness 1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Margot
Somewhere up the street there's a young fellow with dark hair and a heavy backpack. He was walking purposefully toward her, but Margot was pretty consumed in this particular chapter of her book.
She'd glanced up when turning pages, glimpsed the man walking up-- noticed that his face wasn't unpleasant and he was carrying a large backpack and he was coming this way. She presumed that he was just going to come into the cafe to get a drink and unload a bunch of books to study and do college work (like so many others) while he drank.
Back to the book.
Denver
Margot doesn't think anything of it, and he seemed like maybe he was just going to pass on through. Seemed like he was going to keep on moving but he stops- all blue-eyed and nervous and he taps, tentatively, on her table. Like he's knocking and expecting to be let in.
She's spent time around people who are high, who are coming down. Knows what it looks like when people are jonesing for something and this guy? Maybe he was hurting for it last week but he sure as shit isn't jittery because he's high now. He's jittery because he's nervous, doesn't try to make a scene or anything of the sort. The young man clears his throat-
"Hey, uh," oh god, please say he isn't going to ask her for a lighter.
"Can you do me a favor?"
Margot
Tap-tap-tap
Hazel eyes skipped up from the page of the book to the man now standing beside her table. Eyebrows soon hopped up as well, questioning and curious about what the man standing beside her table could possibly want.
He cleared his throat and opened a request uncomfortably--hey, uh... could she do him a favor?
There was a sadly familiar tick to the fingers on the table, how they snatched together when they were done tapping the table, or how his arms swung perhaps, or how hands were tucked away so they wouldn't betray him. How his eyes looked, how the light caught in them. The open question on her face closed like a crumpling of a paper bag, and her jaw clenched down on a disapproval and tension bourne of what she recognized within him.
She sounded very much like she wanted him to just go away when she asked:
"What is it?"
Denver
[Manip+Sub: I am totally good at lying?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Margot
[Perception + Empathy: Probably]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Denver
He clears his throat, is taking his backpack off while he's about to start talking and he sounds relieved that she's even humoring him.
There are a number of things that he could have been pulling out of the bag and he didn't seem like he wanted to rob her but, seriously, given the number of books in that loaded down backpack it was a distinct possibility that he was going to hold her up and take the book and flee away, except for the fact that he was a little too scrawny and Margot could probably take him.
"I've got a friend I was supposed to meet, but I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it. So, if you see her- could you give her this?" and from that bag there is a book that is produced. One of those Reader's Digest condensed books that has the highlights of four well-known classics. 1978's edition, specifically. Ivy green cover.
"She's kinda taller? Thin? Vietnamese? Her name's Vanessa, if that helps."
He seems sincere, even if he does look nervous.
Margot
Margot wasn't always a suspicious creature. She lived a pretty secluded life up until recently, all things considered. Her hometown was a city, but it wasn't an incredibly large one, and not especially rife with crime. Of course, she was learning that she had many reasons to be suspicious of many things, and was spending a lot of time with one of the most paranoid people in the city, but...
He seemed sincere. This seemed harmless. It was just a book, and she didn't even need to touch it. Just analyzed it from over the cover of her own book, like she were looking down her nose at a piece of suspect meat to make sure it was safe to even humor before tasting.
"...I suppose. Just leave it there, I guess."
And she nodded her head at the edge of the wire-mesh table where he was hovering.
Denver
She supposes, and he looks relieved, leaves the book there. Puts a hand on it to make sure it was nice and closed and he was content to immediately head on his way. Down the walkway and going about as quickly as he could, "thankyousomuchthismeanssomuchtome-" and then he was on his way.
Margot
Not unlike an owl, Margot's head turned to follow after the man until he rounded a bend and was out of sight. Then her gaze was left to turn onto the book that was left on her table. Her dark brows hunkered down in the middle with thoughts of nothing promising.
You see, if there wasn't anything untrustworthy about this hand-off, then the man would have simply left the book with a barista rather than trust it with some young girl at the table along the sidewalk. The risk of snooping... well...
Margot closed her own book and set it down on the table directly in front of her. Took the spoon that she'd been using to stir her coffee and stuck it in her mouth to clean the coffee from it, then held on to the spoon's spade so she could use the handle like a want to knock the book open and flip the pages about without actually having to touch them.
Like she thought the book would make her fingers stink a terrible stench that would never leave them.
Denver
Margot watches him head along the way, and out of eyeshot.
She opens up the book ever-so-carefully. There is a bit of relief to know that the book hasn't been hollowed out and filled with cocaine or that the book isn't stuffed with hundred dollar bills that she is supposed to pick up because someone left their drug money. No, when she opens the book she sees things written in the margins. Hurried handwriting.
Flips again and she comes across a picture. Flips and comes across another photo. Somewhere towards the back an envelope seems to be stuffed full of them, printed out in notecard size from a Walgreens. There are some polaroids.
There's a folded up letter stuffed somewhere in the section about the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
William
About the same time that William is rounding the corner he seems to pass by the young man who dropped off the book. Brows raise in recognition and he lingers. The young man looks uncomfortable, but they do seem familiar.
The darker haired one doesn't seem like he doesn't know Will. Or that being around him is an uncomfortable experience, only that he needs to be somewhere and that somewhere wasn't here. Whatever they talk about at the distance makes Will look a little concerned, then back to his standard flippant and unphased. They keep on talking before the young man with the dark hair bails.
Will shrugs, continues on his way which happens to be in Margot's direction.
Margot
It was hard to say if Margot would have actually preferred to have found a bag of cocaine or was of hundred dollar bills stuffed inside the book's cover. The problem would have been more obvious, more mundane, easier to solve.
Instead: pictures. Lots of them. The furrow to her brow changed, less disgust and more distrust. Soon, concentration as well, for she'd pulled the book closer with the spoon wand and held the pages open to read some of the margin-scrawl, to inspect some of the pictures.
Didn't even feel the Storm rolling in (Mr. Holmes).
William
Across the margins she finds a few notes- one corresponding with a picture that had come with it:
Marcus- Middle Supply. A taller man, dark hair, clean cut. Hard gaze. Ethnically ambiguous, looks like he works out.
He then lists coordinates and street names. Saints' Resistance. Sureños & La eMe don't fuck with him.
Another section-
V.- hope this helps.
There are lists of supply chains, what is being sold in what part of town. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that seems particularly intense or experimental.
Margot
Not entirely sure of what she was looking at here, but Margot wasn't familiar with this sort of thing. Something less obvious than a bag of drugs right in front of her was slipping through her grasp of understanding.
William was about to pass the patio, and Margot glanced up again at this point. She'd spied him speaking with the man at the edge of the sidewalk, before he'd vanished from sight. Watched the exchange before looking back to the book. Now that he was nearer, though...
"Where do you know that guy from?"
Margot's voice piped up when William was near enough to hear her. If he hadn't noticed her before, it's her intro line to surprise him with. If he had, it's simply her way of cutting to the chase. We'll call it a to-the-point 'greeting'.
William
He hadn't noticed. Maybe he was headed her way, but he was distracted. William's world was loud. There are a dozen other things that he notices when he's walking through places. The sound of cars pulling out. The clink of glasses in the distance, the smell of wet dog and hummus and the sound of someone crying over some manhole or somewhere that he couldn't see but he knew it was there and just presumed it was there and there are points in his life that he can't be sure if what he's experiencing is a hallucination or if it has always been real.
Chooses to believe that it's all real. Chooses to believe that reality is fundamentally different for him. Conviction makes it so.
Blinks and looks at Margot- "Jake?"
Yes, William, the only guy you talked to while you were walking.
"We met at a house party. He's not so bad. Gets Hella embarrassed when you play Cards Against Humanity with him. Haven't seen him since that shit at the speedway went down," he stopped for a second, and then went on to explain, "awhile back, like in November, there was a robbery and a murder at this speedway where he worked. Then one of his dumbass friends got killed trying to break into some chick's house. They apparently all worked together at one point."
"That race track was shady as fuck."
Margot
While William was talking, Margot glanced back over her shoulder again. Down the sidewalk, up the sidewalk, hunting for some tall thin Vietnamese looking girl that might happen to come by looking for the book. When assured that this person wasn't going to appear behind her like a harpy with claws grasping angrily for the violated privacy, Margot gestured for him to come nearer. Tapped the book with the spoon wand a couple of times to indicate it.
"Well, looks like he's still shady as fuck. Look what he decided to drop off here and ask me to see into the right hands."
William
HIs eyes track down to the piece of paper, over the margins and at the details of what is there. His eyes narrow for a second and he whips out his phone. Is looking at the cross streets and trying to plot them via Google Maps and little digital pin pricks via app.
"Holy shit," he mutters to himself. Flips through a couple more pages, "what is he, some kind of informant or something?"
A beat.
"Who's V?"
Margot
"That appears to be the case."
While William was busy looking through the pages of the book, Margot took time to begin packing up her own belongings. The book that she had been reading was tucked into her backpack, and her hands slipped over her pants pockets to make sure her wallet and phone and keys all in her possession. He was curious to know who V was, and she shook her head. Re-emerged from being leaned down under the table's edge and looked at William with rathr serious gaze.
"V is Vanessa-- the girl who he wanted me to make sure got this book." She had her lips pressed close together and was scowling up and down the street again. Looked like she very much wanted to get up and leave, but wasn't sure that it was the best idea.
"I didn't wake up today wanting to get involved in drug trafficking and gang turfs, William. Your friend is shitty."
William
Vanessa.
He thinks.
Stops.
"Holy shit, he is an informant. Vanessa Truong is a journalist, she was the lady that covered the break in- it was some human interest piece. She does the news on channel... fuck... she was on ABC last time I saw."
Which was about the time that gunshots went off, somewhere around that corner that Jake had rounded.
Margot
[PTSD: Margot I'm sorry this is your life]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Margot
She hasn't been living in Denver long enough to recognize television newscasters. She didn't even own a television-- she had a beat-up laptop, sure, but Margot was of a new generation. Her news came from the internet-- social media sites and actual news sites alike. So Vanessa Truong didn't ring any bells, but the fact that she was a recognizable figure in the city-- someone on camera almost every day, that was odd indeed.
She looked like she was trying to fit together a pattern in a puzzle when there weren't nearly enough pieces on the table just yet. Opened her mouth to ask a qustion, but was interrupted by--
POP! POP!-POP!
Some people out on cafe and restaurant patios screamed and ducked, others just jumped and looked around in confusion. Margot flinched, shoulders jerking up to her shoulders and hands raising along a path to clap over her ears. They didn't make it, though, and instead she grabbed hold of her backpack and scooped it up. Stood quickly but paused to look at William with wide, scared eyes. Run? they said.
Those eyes flicked to the book in his hand, then back to him. Another question-- what to do with it?
William
Three shots in short succession. Tires screeching, people scattering, fabric rustling, he knows chaos. PIcks up any number of things but doesn't pick out much more because his brain is screaming at him and his hands are still on the book and Margot's eyes are wide and scared and he closes the book quickly, looks from her to the table to make sure all of its contents are gathered up and-
Nods once, gets up and is taking the book, taking her things, taking her hand if she'd let him and making a break for cover or somewhere that isn't here
"Where are you parked?"
Damned if he doesn't sound like a southerner when he's on edge.
Margot
They looked at the book and at each other. He nodded, and Margot nodded along with him half a second later. Take the book. Turn it in to the right people. That was the right thing to do, right? But those gunshots, she had very little doubt in her mind that they were coincidental. Gunshots weren't just fired off all the time in the Santa Fe district of Denver. Jake might not be breathing anymore, and whoever fired those shots may come here looking for a drop-off point that they already knew in advance.
As that dawned on her, color slipped from Margot's face. Maybe this is what prompted William to offer a hand to her, she looked like she could use the reassurance. Sure enough, she accepted the gesture and grasped hands with him while they ducked quickly out of the patio area.
Where was she parked?
"This way," Margot said, and tugged William's hand to guide him along with her as she ran around the side of the cafe through a narrow alley into the small parking lot in the back. William's legs were longer than hers by far, he could no doubt outstride her, but Margot was fast. There was no need to worry about slowing down on her behalf.
Margot's car was a little four-door sedan, nothing new or impressive but well cared for and in reliable condition. Easy to overlook. Great for situations like this. It's almost like she knew she'd need to make a getaway one day.
William
[Per+alert: because being vigilant is important]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
Margot
[Oh I suppose... Per + Alert]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
William
He bails. Takes her hand and runs with her and, truth be told, Margot is way faster than he is. Sure, he can run like he's going to do it for the next five years and not stop, but he wasn't an athlete in high school. The most rigorous activity William does is hiking followed by adventurous sex. Only one of those activities benefits from you being fast. In short, they both seemed to keep pretty good pace together.
So he follows her lead, is keeping an eye on things, and they both seem to be doing a pretty good job of making sure that they are headed on the right path and that nobody is actually following them. There's a lot of chaos. People are calling the cops, paramedics. Someone is probably doing CPR or something that people do in emergency situations.
He's trying to shove the book into his bag while he's moving, because there is no reason walking around with it in plain sight.
William
Margot notices the standard fare going on outside. Yes, people are fleeing. Yes, the paramedics are being called. For now, her exit is clear, and it looks like it's going to be clear. Nobody is following.
Margot
So far, Margot saw nothing that would prevent them from escaping. So she let go of William's hand and rushed around to the driver's side door of her car. Stuck the key in the door and twisted twice to unlock all the doors on the vehicle-- that way William could climb in just as promptly.
There wasn't much conversation to be had while all this was going on. Though nobody seemed to be following them, adrenaline was pumping her heart hard and fast and she was focused on just getting them the hell out of there.
Unless prevented from doing so, she would hop into the car and wait only long enough for William to get his door closed before she'd start backing up from her space and maneuvering her vehicle on out of the lot.
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