2014.04.25 - The List Prologue: "Flint"

Place: The Bar with No Name

Time: Sometime on a Wednesday

It's very likely that most of the patrons of The Bar with No Name don't realize the irony of the bar's non-name. It's enough for them that the place is a relatively safe place to openly boast about their villainous exploits, complain about their villainous failures, and consume whatever their poison of choice happens to be. However, one of The Bar's most objectively useful functions is to serve as a criminal bulletin board of sorts, and it is perhaps for this reason that the place is a bit fuller tonight than it usually is on a Wednesday.

Nearly a week ago, flyers were passed out with the vague message "Hiring for job. Will bring suitcase w/gold in it. Real gold. Come next week, s'il vous plait. No assassins." As one can probably imagine, many dismissed it as a prank or a job offer from a fool. Many noted that 'next week' wasn't really a useful date to give to potential job applicants. Several, however, took a guess at which day was meant and showed up anyway, just in case.

Those that have chosen this particular day are in luck, as are those who just happened to be in the bar anyway. Because today is the day that a trenchcoat-wearing mutant makes his way into the bar with a suitcase that even with the handle extended and the rollers engaged it still looks as if dragging the luggage is a chore and a half. Still, despite his obvious burden, the man navigates the bar, dragging the suitcase over to one of the bar's more open booths. Having set up shop, he calls a waitress over and hands her a stack of pink flyers and a wad of bills. Several minutes later, most of the patrons in the bar have received the word, courtesy of the flyers 'Now taking applications. Assassins not wanted.'

A few months ago, a mafia don made Xavin an offer he couldn't refuse: to help him fight a battle in his crusade against the underworld. The connections he's made since then have proven useful; on nights when he can't find anything to do in his own neighborhood or elsewhere in the city, he sometimes ends up in places like the nameless Bar, hoping to catch a lead. The results have been mixed thus far, but that flyer gives him plenty of impetus to clear his schedule for next week; whatever's worth that much gold must be worth knowing about, after all.

When the proper evening rolls around, he's hunched at the bar with a mostly full mug of beer in cupped in tanned, meaty paws. A few burn scars creep out of the sleeves of his olive trenchcoat, warping already calloused hands; those hands and his face - similarly marred by a light web of scars trailing from his right cheek down into his turtleneck - are the only parts of his body left uncovered by his outfit. A closely cropped, dark brown halo circles the back of his head, and a patch of identically coloured stubble covers his chin. As his fellow trenchcoat wearer lugs his burden into the bar, he tracks the mutant all the way to his booth... and then turns back to the bar and takes a sip from his drink.

No sense in seeming too eager, he figures.

Once a few others have come and gone, he takes a final swig from his beer, then stands from his stool and takes his place in line--or opposite Gambit, if there somehow isn't one. Either way, when he does get face to face with the man, he'll take a moment to settle comfortably into his seat before dryly remarking, "Hell of a show you got goin', here; gotta hand it to ya."

Aside from his introduction, the only 'show' that Gambit is really putting on at the moment involves flipping an old casino chip up into the air and catching it. Over and over again. Sure, it might be a bit obnoxious, but focusing on a repetitive task helps one maintain a rigid poker face. He doesn't take a break from flipping the chip when he gets his first prospective applicant of the evening. Instead, he gives the guy a hard, appraising stare for a few seconds before answering.

"It ought to be. I took a marketin' class. Got a B+."

Only then does he finally stop tossing the chip in the air. Instead, he lets it rest on the top of his closed fist, and then with a gentle nudge from his thumb sends it cascading down his semi-clenched fingers end over end, only to catch it at the last second with his thumb and start the process over again.

"Guess if you'd gotten an A, you wouldn't be hangin' around this dump," Xavin shoots back. He tries to keep his attention focused on Gambit himself, but now and again, his eyes stray towards the chip; the mutant's dexterity is more fascinating than obnoxious, though, at least so far.

"Name's Flint," he continues as he straightens up. He's well over six feet and built like a linebacker; he takes up quite a bit of his side of the booth. "Used to put in work for some guys with the Mandragora family over in Gotham, but things got a little too tense out there. Figured a change'a scenery'd do me good, open up some new doors." After taking a moment to rub the scratch the back of his neck, he tacks on, "I'm a hard worker an' all that jazz; my biggest flaw's that I care too much about gettin' the job done, as a matter'a fact."

It's still a job interview, after all, even if it's happening in a dive bar.

His red eyes focused somewhere in the middle of 'Flint's' face, Gambit listens to what passes for a resume in places like this. Every mission needs some muscle, and Gambit seems to be focused more on sizing the man up than on critically evaluating his qualifications. When he finally responds, it's with a voice that has somehow managed to pick up accents from Louisiana, New Jersey, and god knows where else.

"Sounds about right. But I've got a very important question to ask you before we go any further: How comfortable do you think you'd be if I asked you to sneak into the bedroom of a middle-aged man?" There's barely any change in his inflection, nor does his expression change noticeably. It's very likely that he's perfectly serious.

"Young, old, crippled, whatever," 'Flint' replies with curiously quirked brows. "That flyer'a yours tells me we ain't talkin' anything I'd maybe need another change'a scenery to get away from, so it's all the same to me--as long as the money's green, that is." The hulking crook folds his hands on the table in front of himself, and as this bewildered expression fades to neutrality, he studies his maybe-employer in turn. Unlike the constantly flipped chip, the man's inscrutable accent is rather annoying, mostly because it defies whatever human language lessons he may have gotten when he was younger. Bad enough that he doesn't recognize the face.

"Or gold; y'know, whichever," he adds after a moment with a slight smirk.

"Not a bad answer. Certainly not the worst answer I'll get to that question tonight, anyway. But... since you brought it up I guess I'll skip ahead to the part where I give you the folder and show you the money. Go ahead and check that wheelie suitcase at your feet. That's what seven hundred and twenty ounces of gold bullion looks like, of which I am prepared to give you one hundred ounces after you complete this..."

From a stack beside him, Gambit produces a plain manilla folder. Inside this folder, several pictures of an overweight, pony-tailed man in his early sixties can be found, along with design specs and blueprints for a house, and various other pertinent bits of information. "This guy has information that I need, but as you can tell he's pretty heavy. Which is why I need someone who's sneaky enough to creep into his bedroom with me, but strong enough to help me carry him out."

'Flint' leans down to unzip a corner of the suitcase and peek inside; when he straightens back up, his eyebrows are still raised appreciatively. "Works for me," he says with a firm nod. "Better'n I ever did back in Gotham, that's for sure."

He flips through the folder when it's given to him, and when he comes across the first picture of the mark, he snorts, lifts his eyes and muses, "'Middle-aged', eh?" before getting back to studying. When Gambit is done briefing him, he says, "Yeah, no problem, I guess; I might look ugly, but I got a few tricks. Who's this guy supposed to be, though, that we're goin' to this much trouble t' question 'im?"

"Such a complicated question, I'm not sure I can really answer that. Who are any of us supposed to be?" Although his tone is serious, the corners of the man's red eyes crinkle slightly, an indicator of both bemusement and rapidly-developing crow's feet. "Like you or me, he's a lot of different things to a lot of people. He's a baked goods enthusiast, an Orson Welles lookalike, and one of the world's richest people. You may know him as Harry Leland, but I'm less interested in who he is, and more interested in who is friends is."

"So we'll go pay Mr. Leland a visit, and see what we can learn about his buddies."

"Must be some buddies," Flint remarks as his eyes trail down from the dossier to the treasure resting at his feet. As important as the details in the folder are, the tidbits that Gambit drops are what he's most interested in; the why of the mission is every bit as important as its actual parameters, if only for intel purposes. "You lookin' to get in with 'em? Pay 'em back, maybe?"

He shuts the folder, slides it aside, then leans back and drapes his arm over the back of the booth as he adds, "I'm reaaaal good at payback. Just so you know," with a humourless smile. "When're we hittin' 'em? And how're we keepin' in touch 'till then?"

"Shhh... none of that is anything you need to worry your pretty head about. Let old Gambit take care of the details, you just start planning what you're going to do with about a hundred grand worth of shiny metal monies." Gambit's estimation of the metal's worth is somewhere in the right ballpark, but nowhere near as precise as one might expect from someone who considers himself a master thief.

"We'll hit the house tomorrow night. But in the meantime..." He slides a cheap-looking phone across the table. "... have a burner. I'll call you. Make sure you answer. Then throw the phone away. And, obviously, don't use it to call your girlfriend, eh Cher?"

"No prob," Flint affirms as he turns the phone over in his hands. "Not like she's got anything t' say worth listenin' to anyways." Once he's satisfied, he tips the cheap little thing towards Gambit approvingly, then drops it into a pocket. He slides the folder over with intentions on doing the same with it as he says, "I'll be there with bells on." Beat. "Y'know, bells without the little things--eh, whatever." He extends a hand across the table. "Lookin' forward t' workin' with ya, mon ami." Those last two words are, thanks to his rough and tumble Jersey accent unmitigated by the host of other influences that Gambit's is, twisted into something that any self-respecting French person would probably gag at.

Nothing that Gambit has ever said could be even remotely confused with actual French, but even despite this drawback he still develops the briefest hint of a sneer when he hears someone else attempt to butcher the French language as violently as he usually does. But the looks is gone before it fully develops, and Gambit's face is once again placid and amiable. "Sounds like a plan. Tomorrow should be all kinds of fun, but as you can see, you're not the only one here who was tempted by the thought of getting a big old sack full of gold. If you'll excuse me, I've got to chat up a few more criminals before I head out for the night." Finally, at the close of the conversation, Gambit palms the casino chip and tucks it away in one of the pockets of his coat. "I'll see you tomorrow. Remember to keep your phone on you."

"And don't make any calls with it."