Kevin and Felicia; evening in NYC
Oct. 1st, 2017 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsBack in town, Felicia meets up with Kevin for drinks and to discuss her time away, and debrief how badly things went down. Note, he had some involvement.
The Lamb’s Club might have taken the name and the fireplace from Stanford White’s famous headquarters of Broadway’s premier theatre society, but that was about it. No doubt, the building had been lovingly restored by professionals with input from historians, but it still felt like a set of a New York landmark by someone who loved New York and yet had never been. Sydney had been there multiple times back when he was assigned to New York, having ‘befriended’ quite a few Broadway actors under his cover as a financial advisor. He was known for being able to arrange credit for people; a trait that drew artists to him like flies. He’d been taken to the old club many times for celebratory drinks, usually resulting in reports that assured his superiors that the ‘pinko commie faggot actors’ were not a Soviet plant or a dangerous subversive due to a lack of competence.
While the hotel restaurant-bar it had been converted to did good business, it wasn’t a celebrity hot spot or a trendy location. It was for the quietly rich and the merely well off; the exact blend of boring that appealed to him. It also offered less ways for public embarrassment, because no one was watching it. Which, unfortunately, might or might not be essential for the meeting.
Bypassing the usual bar meeting space, surprisingly vulnerable right at the door, Felicia crossed into the dining room, heels purposeful gunshots against the black herringbone tiled floor. She nodded thankfully at the hostess, taking a breath as if to say something before thinking better of it, and sliding gracefully into the red leather seat.
“So,” she opened helpfully, setting her purse at her hip, a comforting sort of weight. “How have you been?”
“Entirely short of drinks.” Kevin waved over the bartender and ordered a pair of Sidecars; an old specialty of the house. “Oh, sorry. What would you like?”
“That’s fine,” she said, shooting the server a brittle but encouraging smile. “French. Can’t go wrong there.”
Felicia waited until they had departed with their order before raising an eyebrow. “Really. I know I set you up to knock that joke down, but it really only works if I don’t know you’re one of the few with a more in danger liver than mine. If genetics were not involved.”
“True. My liver can be made whole and perfect at will. An immaculate conception, so to speak.” He said, spreading his hands in a gesture. “Besides, you’re not even close to real liver danger. Your generation grew up with things like health regulations and disapproval of drinking during work hours.”
“Which is exactly why I decided to be independently wealthy and self employed, obviously. Drinking at work. Your boss can’t fire you when you’re your boss.” Felicia exhaled quietly, looking away across the room. “We should probably wait until I have booze in my hand before I ask but. Is everything- are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m old, remember? If I had a dime for every op that went tits up on me, I’d spend my time complaining how it used to take just one of them to go see a movie.”
"Well, that's the thing. You're just so ancient. All I want to do is complain at you and eat avocado toast while secretly worrying about what I'll say at the funeral you may never have."
Felicia gratefully took the pause with their drinks arriving, partaking in a long swallow of hers. "That was possibly too far, but you got to witness a year of my life implode so I don't care anymore, honestly."
"It's fair. Things... did not go as planned. But it was a high-risk op to start. That's the problem with the big risk/big reward jobs is that more often than not, you end up needing to bail."
Felicia made a sharp sighing noise. "This is why I never get invested. Except when I do, apparently. Feelings are the worst, how do I get rid of those?" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, suddenly tired. "You must know."
"I do. You compartmentalize everything. You learn how to separate the emotions that impact you from the job and focus on the outcome." Kevin said, somewhat serious for a moment. "Part of this job is using people and leaving them to face the consequences once you get want you need."
"Oh, do you have any brilliant tips of profit and chucking the memory of your dead father while utterly failing at avenging his memory? After having accomplished nothing for years and putting in months of work only to be foiled by a safe? You know, the thing you're supposed to be good at?" she snapped back, then paused, and raised her hand in defeat. "Other than collecting free drinks, I've got that part down already."
"Sure. The best thing is to stop wallowing and suck it up." Sydney said, taking a drink. "Yeah, you invested a bunch and it didn't work. So, what the fuck are you going to do now? Because, unless your intention is to say you did your best and walk away, the only real option I see is picking yourself up and starting again."
He paused before going on, his voice lower and slower this time. "I've watched ops which people spent careers setting up fall apart from a detail that they couldn't have possibly factored for. Life is unfair. But you're alive, you have new intel, and there are more chances."
"It was mostly rhetorical, Yoda," Felicia replied, the sarcasm half hearted. "Some of us aren't used to failing and need some time to wallow in our special snowflake booze haze. I mean, do you know how much work it's going to take to get me to my natural hair colour, again?"
She took another heavy sip of her drink. "I... appreciate it, though. That you came out. And this."
"You have a natural hair colour? I doubt that." He knocked back the rest of his drink and waved for another. "Look, the fact that the op came apart wasn't your fault, Felicia. There's no way you would have known about a secret safe. Sometimes, this shit just happens."
"Rude, Sydney. Rude. God meant me to have that hair colour, they just didn't know it at the time. How else will dickholes assume I'm just a pretty face?" Felicia nodded to add her to the second round. "You are being weirdly nice to me. Safes are my thing. Safes and I are occasionally not platonic soul mates. It was a giant safe that somehow got installed while I wasn't looking. It's a giant smack in the face and I'm very self absorbed."
"That's allowed, but put professional pride and arrogance off to one side for a second. How could you have planned differently to account for the new model of safe?" Kevin pointed out. That was how these agencies worked. If you failed, what did you learn for the next time?
Felicia rolled her eyes, finishing her drink with a hard lift of her chin. "Closer monitoring of their finances to notice the money that moved from petty cash, cross referencing it with the cost of the safe and installation, happening to be there when the giant moving truck showed up, any of the above? Look, I'm not saying the odds were ever in my favour here but as I said. Self absorbed daddy issues booze wallowing."
"You're good enough to know that tracking petty transactions was never an option, and you needed an inside source to monitor deliveries, of which they received a half dozen a day." Kevin sighed. "At the CIA, I was part of the best funded, best supported spy agency in the world, and even we couldn't compensate for things like this."
Felicia squinted at him in an exaggerated fashion. "We talked about how I don't fuck coworkers, right?"
The server decided on this exact moment to drop off their drinks, and she smiled cheerfully at him until he went away. "No, but really. I mean, yes, that, really, but I'm hearing you. You think I'm great and you're old and probably did Veronica Lake back in the day so it must be true. Oh my god, please tell me you nailed Veronica Lake."
"I did not nail Veronica Lake. I used to jack off to Adele Jergens photos in Korea, but I was young then." He shook his head. "I'm not trying to bullshit you into feeling better. If you don't learn to process mistakes in any way other than guilt and self-loathing, this job will eat you up."
"Boo. You're a disappointment to us all," she replied, smiling at him.
"I try. So, what is your plan now? I doubt you're just letting the Maggia off the hook." He said, ignoring the Lake reference. She seemed to have a vague idea of his age, although he couldn't blame her.
Felicia swirled her drink idly, giving herself some time to think. "Well. Pretty sure I helped melt off half of Whitney's face. So, staying out of most of Europe for a while. Guess I'll just have to stick with the New York branch."
"So, that means a new plan. With new faces involved? I vaguely feel like that's something you can't do just on your own..." He pointed out.
Her laugh was sparkling, white teeth framed by dark red lips. "Are you hinting at something, Sydney?"
"I'm suggesting that your quixotic attempt to take on a highly sophisticated crime family on your own needs some help." Sydney spread his hands. "I went after Mafia families. It's a long process."
"I'm all for help. I'm just very bad at delegating when it involves feelings," she replied easily, eyebrow quirked.
"Well, you obviously haven't figured out that any operation should involve alcohol and sex in the development stage."
"Darling," Felicia stated sweetly. "Why limit yourself to just the development stage?"
The Lamb’s Club might have taken the name and the fireplace from Stanford White’s famous headquarters of Broadway’s premier theatre society, but that was about it. No doubt, the building had been lovingly restored by professionals with input from historians, but it still felt like a set of a New York landmark by someone who loved New York and yet had never been. Sydney had been there multiple times back when he was assigned to New York, having ‘befriended’ quite a few Broadway actors under his cover as a financial advisor. He was known for being able to arrange credit for people; a trait that drew artists to him like flies. He’d been taken to the old club many times for celebratory drinks, usually resulting in reports that assured his superiors that the ‘pinko commie faggot actors’ were not a Soviet plant or a dangerous subversive due to a lack of competence.
While the hotel restaurant-bar it had been converted to did good business, it wasn’t a celebrity hot spot or a trendy location. It was for the quietly rich and the merely well off; the exact blend of boring that appealed to him. It also offered less ways for public embarrassment, because no one was watching it. Which, unfortunately, might or might not be essential for the meeting.
Bypassing the usual bar meeting space, surprisingly vulnerable right at the door, Felicia crossed into the dining room, heels purposeful gunshots against the black herringbone tiled floor. She nodded thankfully at the hostess, taking a breath as if to say something before thinking better of it, and sliding gracefully into the red leather seat.
“So,” she opened helpfully, setting her purse at her hip, a comforting sort of weight. “How have you been?”
“Entirely short of drinks.” Kevin waved over the bartender and ordered a pair of Sidecars; an old specialty of the house. “Oh, sorry. What would you like?”
“That’s fine,” she said, shooting the server a brittle but encouraging smile. “French. Can’t go wrong there.”
Felicia waited until they had departed with their order before raising an eyebrow. “Really. I know I set you up to knock that joke down, but it really only works if I don’t know you’re one of the few with a more in danger liver than mine. If genetics were not involved.”
“True. My liver can be made whole and perfect at will. An immaculate conception, so to speak.” He said, spreading his hands in a gesture. “Besides, you’re not even close to real liver danger. Your generation grew up with things like health regulations and disapproval of drinking during work hours.”
“Which is exactly why I decided to be independently wealthy and self employed, obviously. Drinking at work. Your boss can’t fire you when you’re your boss.” Felicia exhaled quietly, looking away across the room. “We should probably wait until I have booze in my hand before I ask but. Is everything- are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m old, remember? If I had a dime for every op that went tits up on me, I’d spend my time complaining how it used to take just one of them to go see a movie.”
"Well, that's the thing. You're just so ancient. All I want to do is complain at you and eat avocado toast while secretly worrying about what I'll say at the funeral you may never have."
Felicia gratefully took the pause with their drinks arriving, partaking in a long swallow of hers. "That was possibly too far, but you got to witness a year of my life implode so I don't care anymore, honestly."
"It's fair. Things... did not go as planned. But it was a high-risk op to start. That's the problem with the big risk/big reward jobs is that more often than not, you end up needing to bail."
Felicia made a sharp sighing noise. "This is why I never get invested. Except when I do, apparently. Feelings are the worst, how do I get rid of those?" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, suddenly tired. "You must know."
"I do. You compartmentalize everything. You learn how to separate the emotions that impact you from the job and focus on the outcome." Kevin said, somewhat serious for a moment. "Part of this job is using people and leaving them to face the consequences once you get want you need."
"Oh, do you have any brilliant tips of profit and chucking the memory of your dead father while utterly failing at avenging his memory? After having accomplished nothing for years and putting in months of work only to be foiled by a safe? You know, the thing you're supposed to be good at?" she snapped back, then paused, and raised her hand in defeat. "Other than collecting free drinks, I've got that part down already."
"Sure. The best thing is to stop wallowing and suck it up." Sydney said, taking a drink. "Yeah, you invested a bunch and it didn't work. So, what the fuck are you going to do now? Because, unless your intention is to say you did your best and walk away, the only real option I see is picking yourself up and starting again."
He paused before going on, his voice lower and slower this time. "I've watched ops which people spent careers setting up fall apart from a detail that they couldn't have possibly factored for. Life is unfair. But you're alive, you have new intel, and there are more chances."
"It was mostly rhetorical, Yoda," Felicia replied, the sarcasm half hearted. "Some of us aren't used to failing and need some time to wallow in our special snowflake booze haze. I mean, do you know how much work it's going to take to get me to my natural hair colour, again?"
She took another heavy sip of her drink. "I... appreciate it, though. That you came out. And this."
"You have a natural hair colour? I doubt that." He knocked back the rest of his drink and waved for another. "Look, the fact that the op came apart wasn't your fault, Felicia. There's no way you would have known about a secret safe. Sometimes, this shit just happens."
"Rude, Sydney. Rude. God meant me to have that hair colour, they just didn't know it at the time. How else will dickholes assume I'm just a pretty face?" Felicia nodded to add her to the second round. "You are being weirdly nice to me. Safes are my thing. Safes and I are occasionally not platonic soul mates. It was a giant safe that somehow got installed while I wasn't looking. It's a giant smack in the face and I'm very self absorbed."
"That's allowed, but put professional pride and arrogance off to one side for a second. How could you have planned differently to account for the new model of safe?" Kevin pointed out. That was how these agencies worked. If you failed, what did you learn for the next time?
Felicia rolled her eyes, finishing her drink with a hard lift of her chin. "Closer monitoring of their finances to notice the money that moved from petty cash, cross referencing it with the cost of the safe and installation, happening to be there when the giant moving truck showed up, any of the above? Look, I'm not saying the odds were ever in my favour here but as I said. Self absorbed daddy issues booze wallowing."
"You're good enough to know that tracking petty transactions was never an option, and you needed an inside source to monitor deliveries, of which they received a half dozen a day." Kevin sighed. "At the CIA, I was part of the best funded, best supported spy agency in the world, and even we couldn't compensate for things like this."
Felicia squinted at him in an exaggerated fashion. "We talked about how I don't fuck coworkers, right?"
The server decided on this exact moment to drop off their drinks, and she smiled cheerfully at him until he went away. "No, but really. I mean, yes, that, really, but I'm hearing you. You think I'm great and you're old and probably did Veronica Lake back in the day so it must be true. Oh my god, please tell me you nailed Veronica Lake."
"I did not nail Veronica Lake. I used to jack off to Adele Jergens photos in Korea, but I was young then." He shook his head. "I'm not trying to bullshit you into feeling better. If you don't learn to process mistakes in any way other than guilt and self-loathing, this job will eat you up."
"Boo. You're a disappointment to us all," she replied, smiling at him.
"I try. So, what is your plan now? I doubt you're just letting the Maggia off the hook." He said, ignoring the Lake reference. She seemed to have a vague idea of his age, although he couldn't blame her.
Felicia swirled her drink idly, giving herself some time to think. "Well. Pretty sure I helped melt off half of Whitney's face. So, staying out of most of Europe for a while. Guess I'll just have to stick with the New York branch."
"So, that means a new plan. With new faces involved? I vaguely feel like that's something you can't do just on your own..." He pointed out.
Her laugh was sparkling, white teeth framed by dark red lips. "Are you hinting at something, Sydney?"
"I'm suggesting that your quixotic attempt to take on a highly sophisticated crime family on your own needs some help." Sydney spread his hands. "I went after Mafia families. It's a long process."
"I'm all for help. I'm just very bad at delegating when it involves feelings," she replied easily, eyebrow quirked.
"Well, you obviously haven't figured out that any operation should involve alcohol and sex in the development stage."
"Darling," Felicia stated sweetly. "Why limit yourself to just the development stage?"
