17-02-2020, 02:07 AM
Lady Maria and Mander sat outside the large pair of Mahogany doors with Howard Caldwell-Pierce while awaiting the others. They saw LeGrasse, Ramirez, Luc, and Ortega walking toward them. If the two military men had been in ordinary suits rather than their dress uniforms, the four of them approaching in mid-conversation wouldn't be out of place in the introduction to a crime/legal drama where the cops take down the scum of the city in the first half and the lawyers put 'em away in the second.
"We found the rental car abandoned at a car wash in Wine Country last night." LeGrasse was saying to the others as they approached. Maria noticed that Mander's wave to them and Luc and Ramirez's waves back weren't as perfunctory as the other two's. "The driver paid for a full wash and detail, said he had to take care of something, and never returned. We have him on camera and are checking databases. Forensics is going over the vehicle to see if they missed anything."
"You don't rent an automobile without a credit card." Luc replied. "A stolen one, if nothing else. A less likely and hopefully incorrect explanation would be another plant. Or they could have bribed someone like they did the manager at the motel."
They were close enough that it wouldn't be rude for Mander to try and enter the conversation, so he did.
"So that's how they stayed hidden, then?" Mander asked. "Find a cheap motel and slip the desk clerk a few bills to look the other way?"
"Si." Ramirez told him as Mander and Maria stood, now that everyone was gathered. "They gave the manager an extra five-hundred Euros for two rooms for a week with no paperwork and no questions."
"Oui," LeGrasse said, a little uncomfortable talking to Mander like a peer. However, Luc and Ramirez seemed to be doing so, therefore, he'd make the effort as well. "The owner said five-hundred; which probably means five-thousand, but he didn't want us to seize it all. As long as the bills came out of it, we've got something. He figured 'if a dozen guys want to pay that much to use a couple of rooms for a few days, let them film all the gay porn they want in there.'"
That got a laugh from everyone. Then Mander had a thought.
"Dietz probably didn't bother to sterilize the scene if he planned to blow it up when he left. The car thing was a nice move but pulling up stakes like that had to be hurried. I'm sure he took anything he thought we could use with him and left the rest of the cleanup job to his goons. They wouldn't have the discipline to pack up all their empties and cigarette butts and take 'em with. They dumped it all in the nearest bin or the first they came across. Your people with the dust and brushes should be able to get something there, Prefect."
Luc agreed.
"Oui, their garbage will be full of empty beer cans that your fingerprinting people should love. Have the bomb squad check any large trash containers at the motel at once, Martin." He took the microphone of his security officer radio and relayed the instruction to his people still at the scene. "if they find nothing, note the direction they left and check containers to see if they dumped it nearby. Your people caught his C-4 surprise on the door; there's every possibility Dietz would leave another for you to find with the garbage. Someone could toss their own out and set it off! Taking an innocent life for no other reason than slowing our pursuit is not beyond him!"
LeGrasse gave the order greater urgency. When they told him they were on it, the thick Mahogany doors opened enough for Nunzio to step through, smiling.
"La Contessa will see you now." He said cheerfully. The three who'd stayed up late with him were surprised because he'd seemed so buzzed off two pints last night and showed no signs of hangover this morning. Mander had a suspicion why as they entered the Throne Room of Castle Finzione.
The entire room was Mahogany and Marble. And the scent of the room was best described as "History, but not the worst parts of it." No scents from the era of the Black Plague remained.
Gold trim lined the columns and an Emerald Green carpet led toward the center of the room, where their eyes were drawn from the famous artworks on the walls to the Throne and its occupant.
Contessa Helena de San Finzione sat on the Throne of the Reigning Monarch, also Mahogany with inlaid gold and emeralds. The throne to her right, where once she sat and if she'd ever had any intention of marrying another man, her second husband would sit; was next to her. She used the two armrests side-by-side to hold her ash tray and cocoa. A small, hard leather case also sat on the armrests. She wore her emerald-green robes of office and Tiara. In her left hand, she held the Royal Scepter. Music was playing from somewhere; most of the room, by now, recognized Warren Zevon's "Desperadoes Under the Eaves." A meeting table like the one in the War Room had been set up in front of the throne.
"This one's about Warren struggles with drinking." She listened to Warren sing a line and looked up at the speakers. "Oh, Warren! I've ALWAYS been the girl who understands you!" She turned back to them.
"Do you know why I don't like being in this room?" Helena said to the others as they approached. Mander and Luc were still awestruck by the décor. Maria had been in this room many times in her life and the others had been here before. "It's because I have to sit in THIS chair." She gestured to the throne where she sat. "Vincenzo's chair!"
She didn't join in the chorus of "forever does he reign in our hearts" because she was his widow, so it wasn't required of her. When it was finished, she continued.
"Same deal with my offices here and in the Business Wing. Although these chairs and rooms have been mine for seven years, I still think of myself as occupying HIS seat here." She looked down and back up, then to a side door. "And he'll be back any minute and I'll move back to my seat for him. I still get that feeling in these places. I think he took his time coming back so I could get used to the seat; didn't work."
"And yet, you're wearing your robes and the tiara and scepter." Maria said. "And you've asked us to meet here. Why, Great-Grandmama?"
"Making a point." Helen said, looking at Ramirez with a small smile. "Just a second."
The assembled waited while La Contessa hummed along with the fifty-eight seconds of the song where Warren Zevon just hums.
"Ok," she said when it ended. "TWO points. The new first is that all this stuff I'm wearing and this thing I'm sitting on are the only reasons I get to do things like that. The second, well, I did The Thing with Nunzio and he told me you guys talked a bit about that last night." Helen realized how badly that came out. "Oh, I don't mean I used The Thing to make him tell me; hell no! He was hungover, I took the hangover away, and he was so grateful, he told me why he was hungover. Kid's a lightweight, guys. One pint and he's good for the evening."
Those who'd stayed up drinking with Nunzio nodded. They'd learned this.
"Now, Mander is here because, like Vincenzo, I wouldn't have entrusted him with all that I have if I weren't certain he was someone whom I could. I know the kind of shit Igazi forced him to do and I know his heart wasn't in it and he was planning a burn long before I gave him a better offer. Maria gets it; she's one of those things I trust him with. That's why I will always give him the better offer. Because there's nothing more valuable in this world than a man who will stay bought."
Mander remained in Bodyguard Mode as she concluded.
"It sounds like some of you got it a bit last night. Does everyone get that I respect him as much as all of you now? Can you do the same? Or do I have to appoint him the leader of Mander Force; San Finzione's top secret special mission team of highly trained reformed ex-cons who go beyond the law to take down the crooks who operate above it? I can tell by the look on his face that Mander likes the idea and I've already got the codename 'La Fucking Contessa' locked in."
Everyone acknowledged their Contessa's instructions.
"Good. Sorry, take a seat, everyone. I wasn't trying to do THAT kind of power move to you. I've had my morning croissants, but it's early and I can have something brought up."
No one requested it. Helen stepped down from the throne and joined them at the head of the table.
"Arturo Lopez will be remembered as the LAST Citizen of San Finzione to be killed by the Nazis. We all understand this, right?" They did. "Luc, I can no longer promise you a live capture of Dietz. I will do whatever I am able to make this possible. However, if it comes to it, I will hear his case myself; posthumously if need-be, For the Good of The People, and I will sit in Vincenzo's Chair and convict him and carry out his death sentence myself for the crime of Being A Dick In San Finzione! And anything else you tell me he's done. Got a few unsolved cases you'd like to pin on him, go right ahead. You can just make shit up and I'll find him guilty of it."
Luc nodded. She turned to Ramirez.
"I've been trying to do everything right and be the woman Vincenzo married. The problem with that is that he KNEW he was marrying a woman who DOESN'T do everything right! He KNEW that the world would force San Finzione's NEXT ruler to go to the lengths he was too good a man to go to!" She turned to Ortega. "That's why he created La Squadra de Ultimados; to do the things that HAD to be done! Because sometimes, a trigger needs to be pulled and he believed in San Finzione enough to do it himself! But he wouldn't have been the man he was if he were capable; whatever good cause he had."
"We found the rental car abandoned at a car wash in Wine Country last night." LeGrasse was saying to the others as they approached. Maria noticed that Mander's wave to them and Luc and Ramirez's waves back weren't as perfunctory as the other two's. "The driver paid for a full wash and detail, said he had to take care of something, and never returned. We have him on camera and are checking databases. Forensics is going over the vehicle to see if they missed anything."
"You don't rent an automobile without a credit card." Luc replied. "A stolen one, if nothing else. A less likely and hopefully incorrect explanation would be another plant. Or they could have bribed someone like they did the manager at the motel."
They were close enough that it wouldn't be rude for Mander to try and enter the conversation, so he did.
"So that's how they stayed hidden, then?" Mander asked. "Find a cheap motel and slip the desk clerk a few bills to look the other way?"
"Si." Ramirez told him as Mander and Maria stood, now that everyone was gathered. "They gave the manager an extra five-hundred Euros for two rooms for a week with no paperwork and no questions."
"Oui," LeGrasse said, a little uncomfortable talking to Mander like a peer. However, Luc and Ramirez seemed to be doing so, therefore, he'd make the effort as well. "The owner said five-hundred; which probably means five-thousand, but he didn't want us to seize it all. As long as the bills came out of it, we've got something. He figured 'if a dozen guys want to pay that much to use a couple of rooms for a few days, let them film all the gay porn they want in there.'"
That got a laugh from everyone. Then Mander had a thought.
"Dietz probably didn't bother to sterilize the scene if he planned to blow it up when he left. The car thing was a nice move but pulling up stakes like that had to be hurried. I'm sure he took anything he thought we could use with him and left the rest of the cleanup job to his goons. They wouldn't have the discipline to pack up all their empties and cigarette butts and take 'em with. They dumped it all in the nearest bin or the first they came across. Your people with the dust and brushes should be able to get something there, Prefect."
Luc agreed.
"Oui, their garbage will be full of empty beer cans that your fingerprinting people should love. Have the bomb squad check any large trash containers at the motel at once, Martin." He took the microphone of his security officer radio and relayed the instruction to his people still at the scene. "if they find nothing, note the direction they left and check containers to see if they dumped it nearby. Your people caught his C-4 surprise on the door; there's every possibility Dietz would leave another for you to find with the garbage. Someone could toss their own out and set it off! Taking an innocent life for no other reason than slowing our pursuit is not beyond him!"
LeGrasse gave the order greater urgency. When they told him they were on it, the thick Mahogany doors opened enough for Nunzio to step through, smiling.
"La Contessa will see you now." He said cheerfully. The three who'd stayed up late with him were surprised because he'd seemed so buzzed off two pints last night and showed no signs of hangover this morning. Mander had a suspicion why as they entered the Throne Room of Castle Finzione.
The entire room was Mahogany and Marble. And the scent of the room was best described as "History, but not the worst parts of it." No scents from the era of the Black Plague remained.
Gold trim lined the columns and an Emerald Green carpet led toward the center of the room, where their eyes were drawn from the famous artworks on the walls to the Throne and its occupant.
Contessa Helena de San Finzione sat on the Throne of the Reigning Monarch, also Mahogany with inlaid gold and emeralds. The throne to her right, where once she sat and if she'd ever had any intention of marrying another man, her second husband would sit; was next to her. She used the two armrests side-by-side to hold her ash tray and cocoa. A small, hard leather case also sat on the armrests. She wore her emerald-green robes of office and Tiara. In her left hand, she held the Royal Scepter. Music was playing from somewhere; most of the room, by now, recognized Warren Zevon's "Desperadoes Under the Eaves." A meeting table like the one in the War Room had been set up in front of the throne.
"This one's about Warren struggles with drinking." She listened to Warren sing a line and looked up at the speakers. "Oh, Warren! I've ALWAYS been the girl who understands you!" She turned back to them.
"Do you know why I don't like being in this room?" Helena said to the others as they approached. Mander and Luc were still awestruck by the décor. Maria had been in this room many times in her life and the others had been here before. "It's because I have to sit in THIS chair." She gestured to the throne where she sat. "Vincenzo's chair!"
She didn't join in the chorus of "forever does he reign in our hearts" because she was his widow, so it wasn't required of her. When it was finished, she continued.
"Same deal with my offices here and in the Business Wing. Although these chairs and rooms have been mine for seven years, I still think of myself as occupying HIS seat here." She looked down and back up, then to a side door. "And he'll be back any minute and I'll move back to my seat for him. I still get that feeling in these places. I think he took his time coming back so I could get used to the seat; didn't work."
"And yet, you're wearing your robes and the tiara and scepter." Maria said. "And you've asked us to meet here. Why, Great-Grandmama?"
"Making a point." Helen said, looking at Ramirez with a small smile. "Just a second."
The assembled waited while La Contessa hummed along with the fifty-eight seconds of the song where Warren Zevon just hums.
"Ok," she said when it ended. "TWO points. The new first is that all this stuff I'm wearing and this thing I'm sitting on are the only reasons I get to do things like that. The second, well, I did The Thing with Nunzio and he told me you guys talked a bit about that last night." Helen realized how badly that came out. "Oh, I don't mean I used The Thing to make him tell me; hell no! He was hungover, I took the hangover away, and he was so grateful, he told me why he was hungover. Kid's a lightweight, guys. One pint and he's good for the evening."
Those who'd stayed up drinking with Nunzio nodded. They'd learned this.
"Now, Mander is here because, like Vincenzo, I wouldn't have entrusted him with all that I have if I weren't certain he was someone whom I could. I know the kind of shit Igazi forced him to do and I know his heart wasn't in it and he was planning a burn long before I gave him a better offer. Maria gets it; she's one of those things I trust him with. That's why I will always give him the better offer. Because there's nothing more valuable in this world than a man who will stay bought."
Mander remained in Bodyguard Mode as she concluded.
"It sounds like some of you got it a bit last night. Does everyone get that I respect him as much as all of you now? Can you do the same? Or do I have to appoint him the leader of Mander Force; San Finzione's top secret special mission team of highly trained reformed ex-cons who go beyond the law to take down the crooks who operate above it? I can tell by the look on his face that Mander likes the idea and I've already got the codename 'La Fucking Contessa' locked in."
Everyone acknowledged their Contessa's instructions.
"Good. Sorry, take a seat, everyone. I wasn't trying to do THAT kind of power move to you. I've had my morning croissants, but it's early and I can have something brought up."
No one requested it. Helen stepped down from the throne and joined them at the head of the table.
"Arturo Lopez will be remembered as the LAST Citizen of San Finzione to be killed by the Nazis. We all understand this, right?" They did. "Luc, I can no longer promise you a live capture of Dietz. I will do whatever I am able to make this possible. However, if it comes to it, I will hear his case myself; posthumously if need-be, For the Good of The People, and I will sit in Vincenzo's Chair and convict him and carry out his death sentence myself for the crime of Being A Dick In San Finzione! And anything else you tell me he's done. Got a few unsolved cases you'd like to pin on him, go right ahead. You can just make shit up and I'll find him guilty of it."
Luc nodded. She turned to Ramirez.
"I've been trying to do everything right and be the woman Vincenzo married. The problem with that is that he KNEW he was marrying a woman who DOESN'T do everything right! He KNEW that the world would force San Finzione's NEXT ruler to go to the lengths he was too good a man to go to!" She turned to Ortega. "That's why he created La Squadra de Ultimados; to do the things that HAD to be done! Because sometimes, a trigger needs to be pulled and he believed in San Finzione enough to do it himself! But he wouldn't have been the man he was if he were capable; whatever good cause he had."
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