Cohost writing prompt: @spy-thief-assassin-who — Mob Boss who always has to get you off
"What am I paying you for, Fosse," Martingale says, in a voice like a crocodile's displeasure: alien, ancient, coldly carnivorous.
The police lieutenant's face falls, goes ashen and damp. "What?" he says. "I didn't — what?"
It's routine enough for one or another of Il Padrone's people to step into the city's police headquarters, ask to speak to some particular officer on some particular matter, and to leave some time later, accompanied by an erstwhile resident of the holding cells. Il Padrone has people for this: lawyers, fixers, and cops on the take. Jail cannot hold her people, unless she chooses to leave them there. It's less routine for her to stroll in herself, three people in her wake — two bodyguards, one lawyer — and concern herself with the mundanities.
"What," Martingale repeats, with no more affect than the first time, "am I paying you for."
Fosse blots at his forehead. "Look, there's no trouble here," he says, voice cracking. "No trouble at all. Business as usual. Night in the cells, no evidence, your lawyer's down here to politely ask if we're pressing charges, and the wizard walks out of here—"
"You're taking my money," Martingale says, and there's something large and shadowy moving beneath the surface of the crocodile's river now, "to seal a civilised, gentleman's understanding about how this city works. You protect and serve, and you mind your own business, and that way we don't become each others' business, you and I. You understand?"
"Yes," Fosse says, sweating. "Yes, I understand. I don't — look, this was a routine pickup, nobody can finger the wizard for anything definite, the Commissioner's just shaking the tree so the mayor can see him watching for what falls out; it's an election year. The wizard just keeps turning up too close to too many people gone missing or died—"
"Do you want to be my business, Fosse?" Martingale says, and Fosse looks pleadingly past her shoulder at the door of his tiny office, at the shadow through the glass of her muscle and her lawyer standing outside.
"No!" he says. "No, look, this was routine—"
"The wizard," Martingale says. "Dandelion. Maybe you missed something, Fosse. She's my wizard."
"Look, what am I supposed to do? If she keeps calling suspicion on herself, what, I'm supposed to just make that vanish?"
"There," Martingale says. "You do know what I'm paying you for."
"If she keeps killing people, she needs to hide it better—"
Marty closes her hand around his throat. Not crushingly tight, but not loose. "The next time the wizard sees the inside of a lockup, someone in blue sees the inside of a casket," she says, low and even and reptile-cold. "Is that clear enough? Do I need to explain myself in shorter words for one of our city's finest?"
"No," Fosse says. "I mean, yes! Yes! I understand!"
Fifteen minutes later, as her lawyer drives away into the evening fog, Marty takes hold of Dandy's shoulder as the wizard reaches for the passenger side door of Marty's own automobile. The wizard turns easily, into the cage of Marty's arms as she leans both palms against the edge of the vehicle's roof.
"I have people," Marty says, through her teeth. "I have people whose whole job is to get rid of evidence. If you don't care to do it yourself, at least take advantage of what I have."
Dandy's smile glitters under the streetlamps.
"For crying out loud," Marty says viciously, and her hand on Dandy's neck is much less careful than on the policeman's, the wizard's laugh a squeezed and breathless thing fluttering under her bruising fingers. "Il Padrone cannot afford you to be stupid, Dandy—" but her other hand, without input from her conscious intentions, is kneading the silk shirt over Dandy's breast.
"You know it's not stupid," Dandy croaks happily. "It's reckless because I'm fire, I burn—" and Marty knows, knows that it's one part arcane truth and one part Dandy's own, that there's no other way for her to be, and if it blows everything up around her then she'll explode with it, laughing still.
"If I have to put you on a chain—" Marty threatens, tearing at the button of Dandy's slacks to dip her hand inside.
"Do it," Dandy hisses, arching, eyes fluttering; "fucking do it, your mad chained hunting dog—" and mewls indistinctly into Marty's shoulder, overripe and hair-triggered and desperate.
It's only being pressed between Martingale and the side of the automobile that keeps her upright, afterward, boneless and purring. Marty pushes her head back with a shaky hand to see the marks blossoming on her throat, dips her mouth to kiss silent contrition to them.
"I'm serious," she says against skin, and Dandy runs languid hands up her back and laughs in a lazy, fuck-drunk way; and doesn't promise anything.