Alice
[Do I have on my Mission face?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Alice
Hey, look. There is a shrine for a murdered girl [la llorona (all in white)] who was raped whose throat was cut in the alley between that church and that preschool across the street from that liquor store. Hey, look, there are candles in tall glass glasses that are not flickering in the wind because they are protected although they just barely glow past the wax and the painted effigies of saints. Hey, hey, look, there is a small Mexican foods mart and a bar that has real sawdust and a way down into Old San Francisco, a favourite entrance into the Underground by some savvy Urban Explorers who we will not be dealing with right now. It’s that time of night when even the things that’re open all night are thinking about closing down but not yet not yet.
There’s this bar, right? This bar right next to the churches where a murdered girl was raped whose throat was cut who they say is sometimes seen still just standing there in the shadow of the dumpster staring (the kids [they like to touch the wal where there’s a stain they say its hers they say you do that and she’ll come whisper you an answer to any question you want to ask but she only whispers sad answers] come by sometimes and stare too).
The bar. That’s what we’re talking about. The bar: there’s a billiards table — and a girl who looks just barely old enough to get in; even then. This girl, all alone at the billiards table, lining up a shot and playing herself. The place smells of tortillas and cooking onions and spilled tequilla and it is almost but not quite empty. The gentlemen behind the bar are goofing around. There’s a jukebox playing some spanish love song.
Izzy Montoya
And so, a Detective walks into a bar…
The best thing about living and working in The Mission she’s decided, is the wide variety of bars. Derek gone home for the weekend, leaving her to her own devices, which means it’s time to try out another bar.
She’d worked late again – because that’s what she does. she forgets the time, she forgets that there are reasons to go home, she forgets that the dead will stay dead and there will be time the following day to nail their murderers to the wall – metaphorically, of course. Since meeting Derek, he has been able to temper some of that – to remind her to go home, to remind her there is life outside of Homicide investigation.
He even cooks for her.
Which leads us to this bar – that smells of tortilla’s and onions and tequilla. AKA – Dinner. She puts out her cigarette outside the door, exhaling as she enters. Slacks, a tailored blouse, a light blazer to hold her badge in one pocket, and hide the bulge of her weapon at the small of her back. Sturdy shoes, her hair loose and framing a face that is made of too strong features, and a woman who is often accused of walking like a man. Add all that together, and you have one Detective Montoya.
She gives her eyes a moment to adjust, then makes her way directly to the bar.
Alice
Maybe this is the first time Detective Montoya has been here. She doesn’t know that the men behind the bar are named Diego and Rafael. She doesn’t know that they’re cousins and that one of them is married and has been since he was seventeen and that he has three children by two different mothers. She doesn’t know that this place has the best tacos in Northern California but that the enchiladas are something only those ready to walk through the valley of the shadow of death will order.
But she’ll probably find out if she makes this one of her regular pit stops. They’re boisterous when she comes in, Diego — the sullen one with smoulder-dark eyes and smoulder-dark hair — slinks off towards the back after whapping Rafael in the back of the head with a dishtowel; Rafael’s the one who takes her order. He even turns on the schmoozy charm.
The girl by the billiards table looks up [break!] when Izzy with the smell of a just-smoked cigarette and the girl by the billards table keeps an eye on this newcomer while she circles her table. The girl by the billiards table, we might as well give her a name. Alice. Her name is Alice, that’s what she’s usually called, and her eyes are big and dark and longlashed deepset.
She doesn’t approach Izzy immediately; waits until the (kinfolk) detective is settled into her seat and has spoken with one of the boys, maybe has a plate of greasy crunchy chips with jalapeno and cheese and salsa dumped on top almost Texan-style but not quite, want it with fried bananas maam, and then –
Then she’ll approach. See?
Izzy Montoya
She is a whiskey drinker, first and foremost, though even she knows that in a place like this, it will be sneered at. So she orders a tequila shot, with a beer she doesn’t need to chase it, just to prolong the burn. Then, dinner – Rafael;s turning on the charm, and Izzy merely looks at him. She wears no ring, and perhaps another day she’d return the flirting, but today she has dark circles under her eyes, and the look she gives him can, at best, be said to be ‘bland’.
She goes for the house tacos, and when he turns to get her drinks and put in the order, she slides her fingers through her hair, and closes her eyes, briefly. She hadn’t expected to be unable to sleep one Derek left. She thought she was over that… apparently, not. Sunday can’t come soon enough.
Alice
[Ahaha. Uh, how open to approaching are you, anyway? Percept + Empathy! Must decide on the right track to take yeah?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Izzy Montoya
[Hahaha. Izzy isn’t the soft a fluffy type, at best. The look she shot the ever friendly Rafael is any indication, it’s possible she’d ignore any approach. Or answer in monosyllables.
It is public, so she probably won’t shoot first.
This time.
she might just be tired enough to talk though – and she is tired. it’s written clear down to her bones…]
Alice
[Rafael: do i realize i am being rebuffed?!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Alice
[Fine. This time, pretty detective woman. This time.]
Alice
Rafael doesn’t stop flirting, but he does get a twinkle in his eye that says he knows Izzy won’t be responding any time soon. He could no sooner stop flirting than he could stop breathing, truth be told. At least when a pair of tits’re in his line of sight. His mama, she raised him right. He goes to the back to yell at Diego; the hiss as onions meet the oven is a magical sound [steam] to someone who’s really hungry.
And Sunday can’t come soon enough. And then the street outside’ll be full of worshippers — they’ll come for the holy hours; they’ll avoid the shrine.
“Heyyyyyy,” Alice says, drawling out the y. And Alice has a voice that’s as good to hear as it is to feel splash of cool water on a simmering hot day; Alice has a voice that’s as good to hear as salt is to taste after a day without anything salty; Alice has a voice that’s as good to hear as a kiss is to feel after a parched month of restraint. Alice, she’s got a lovely voice, all nuance and shade and lowlight brass — flat and Midwestern tonight. “Do you mind if I sit and chat at you for a little? I’ve been playing by myself for a couple hours, waiting for my ride to appear, and I think I’m about to go mad from the boredom.”
“You kind of look like you’re good to talk to if the person who talks doesn’t get punched in the face first. I mean that as a compliment.”
Izzy Montoya
Rafael would stop breathing before he stopped flirting. There was a time in the not so distant past, that Izzy likely would have reciprocated to an extent before dragging him to the bathroom for a quick fuck on his break, come out, finished ehr drink, and disappeared. Not now, though. Not this time.
She turns toward Alice as she mentions wanting to talk to someone, as long as she doesn’t get hit in the face first. Izzy’s brow quirks upwards, slightly, as she lets her hands fall to the bartop, and clasp loosely together. Lips curve into a slight smirk.
“That so.”
Two words. At least it’s not a fist.
Yet.
Alice
“Hell yes,” Alice says, and she isn’t smiling yet. Her expression is the kind of curious expression you’d expect on someone who was vibrant (vivacious) and outgoing, but who’d also been around the block a few times and wasn’t exactly a fool. She knew that there were no princes on white steeds and she knew that the princes on white steeds were all necrophiliacs anyway.
“My muscles, they are weak and noodle-like, but I appreciate a woman who can apply brawn with a dash of brains or whatever when it comes to shutting up the idiot brigade. Oy, I’m not hitting on you, just – ” Here, a smile brief. “Like I said. Do you mind if I sit and chat at you for a while? I am bored. And wouldn’t dream of stealing your chips.”
Izzy Montoya
She snorts. It’s her opinion that those who proclaim their muscles to be weak and noodle-like are anything but. She glances up as her drink appears before her, and she reaches to wrap her fingers around the shot of tequila, lifting it to breathe in the scent of her buddy Jose… then, with deft flip of her wrist, she tosses it back, and swallows without so much as a grimace. She sets the cup down, and licks her lips, before she glances at Alice again.
“It’s a free fuckin’ country.” In regards to where she chooses to sit. And then about the chips… “Good. I left my handcuffs in the car.”
Which is a lie, but it’s accompanied with a slight smirk.
Alice
It’s a free fuckin’ country, Izzy says, and Alice takes that as a yes, yes you may sit and we can carry on a conversation like two civilized creatures. And Alice: Alice is a civilized creature, even if the emphasis occasionally (let’s be honest: often) ticks toward ‘creature’ rather than ‘civilized.’ The girl hops onto a barstool, and rests her elbows on the bar top itself. The bar top is pretty clean — but Diego’d been wiping it down before Izzy came in. Look close enough at the colored wood and one can see the smear of moisture, and Alice can certainly feel it against her (cool) skin.
“Handcuffs? Kinky – or is it even kinky anymore to be ‘into’ handcuffs? I feel kind of out of the sexuality loop sometimes in San Fran.” Alice scrunches her nose up at Izzy, holding her hands up in a no maam not going to touch the chips fashion. She places them down on the bar top again, resting her cheek on her fist: “So – I’m Alice. What can I call you…”
“…Officer?”
Izzy Montoya
Like Izzy would know anything about the current sexuality loop in San Francisco, having just moved in herself. But Alice certainly doesn’t know that, and Izzy hasn’t been exactly open about anything, and likely wouldn’t anyway. She just reaches for her beer, now that enough time has passed to savor tequilas burn, so its not so much a chaser as second drink entirely.
She lifts the bottle to her lips, and takes a swallow, before she glances at Alice again, and corrects. “Detective.” An important distinction.
And she doesn’t give her name further than that.
Alice
“Is that different, Detective?” Alice asks, spinning her seat so that her back is to the bar, and she is facing both Detective Izzy Montoya and the door Detective Izzy Montoya walked in through. This puts Diego and Rafael to her back, but by the sounds of it, they’re in a particularly epic argument over something involving cars — or a videogame? And they aren’t going to be sneaking up or creeping any time soon. It won’t be long before the house tacos are placed in front of Izzy by a very sullen Diego, however, before he vanishes back into the kitchen, in a trail of Brooding. “I don’t know very much about law enforcement, ‘cept, you know, don’t speed on the 5 in the morning or they will be on you.”
Izzy Montoya
Is it different? “Yes.”
Not one of many words, Izzy. She doesn’t seem to be watching anything, either, but there are mirrors behind the bar, and one of them watches the door, as well as the floor behind her. Suffice it to say she pays attention, even when it seems like she doesn’t.
She nods her thanks as her tacos are set before her, and digs in. She eats like she hasn’t eaten for a while – or like she’s not sure she’ll have the time to finish it. Either one, maybe both.
She shoots Alice a glance, and smirks, swallowing her bite with a beer chaser. “An officer is uniformed and fresh on the force. A Detective has passed the tests that give her a specialty of sorts.” Briefest explanation, given before she digs in again.
Alice
“Are you glad?” Alice asks, curiously. Her eyes’re the luminous sort’ve eyes that’ll mislead or seem like they couldn’t ever mislead. You know the type. Alice waits until Izzy has devoured some of her meal before asking the question, which she clarifies, too: “Glad to be a detective. Glad to detect. Was it because of Nancy Drew?”
Izzy Montoya
She….blinks. And studies the girl [because she looks very much like a girl, though she doesn’t care enough to check her ID] for a moment. Then, she chooses what part she’ll answer, and how.
“It’s who I am.” Interesting. “And no.”
Alice
[Speaking of who I am – compulsion check?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Alice
[HAHAHA I AM A ROCK]
Alice
“Who you chose to be or did destiny intervene there?” Alice says, watching as the very last scraps of tacos disappear or are poised to disappear. The urge — that urge — one of many starts to twitch make her itchy underneath the bone where fingernails won’t ever be able to scritchscratch and she shifts her weight on the old barstool but only takes in a lungful of air and releases it slowly and then she’s calm suppressing like it’s not even there (I’m not your puppet [you can’t play me]). “Jesus,” she adds, “Let me buy you another plate of tacos. People do that for detectives too, right? It’s not just officers?”
Izzy Montoya
She gets twitchy for a moment and Izzy arches a brow at her, slightly, before chasing around the last bit of her taco with her fingers, collecting the cheese and meat off the plate to plop it in her mouth, a grunt of satisfaction following it.
She answers the question then with a slight shrug. “Both, probably.” But then she offers to buy her another plate, and she shakes her head, lips curving into a lopsided smirk. “Nah. Have to keep my girlish figure. Another shot, though, if you want.”
She won’t turn it down – though she isn’t of any opinion on who people should buy things for as, despite the shot or anything else, Izzy herself can’t be bought.
Alice
Both, probably, Izzy says, and Alice says, “Must be nice.” Beat. “Did you ever read Nancy Drew?”
Izzy mentions her figure, and Alice gives Izzy a look over: just – taking it in. Izzy, athletic beneath those clothes — curvaceous? Slender? She walks like a man — but does she look like one, too? Then she shrugs, combing her fingers through her cloud of hair, holding her other hand up to summon Rafael. Who doesn’t see them, because he has his back turned to the last patrons of the night, so Alice says, “‘Ey, ‘ey, Rafael,” and then she orders another shot for Detective.
“Not that you need to worry,” Alice says. “I don’t think your girlish figure is in danger.”
Izzy Montoya
Izzy isn’t curvacious by a long shot. Lean, that’s perhaps the best way to describe her. Maybe athletic, but for the fact she smokes too many cigarettes and drinks too much. Strong, certainly. She has curves, but they are slight – the swell of hips is undeniably feminine, if barely there. Her breasts are not large, but more than a handful is a waste, right? Slender works. If she were to describe herself in anything other than smirking girlish figures.
It must be nice, Alice says, and she shrugs. Nice or not, she doesn’t seem to have an opinion. She is what she is – and she’s really good at it. That’s all that matters. As for Nancy Drew. “No. I preferred Sherlock Holmes.”
She nods a thanks for the ordered shot, and reaches automatically for her pack of cigarettes, before remmebering and tucking it away again, and wrapping her hands around her beer bottle instead. Fuckin’ no smoking joints. It will be the death of her…
Alice
“Oh, man. Sherlock Holmes – now if he were real? I would want to shake his hand, and then punch him in the face for being so mug all the time. Did you see the new Holmes film?”
Alice is a liar. Alice has to be a liar. She can’t walk around as what she is. She wouldn’t want to. But her lies – they aren’t necessarily black lies. There is Izzy, and she is what she is. She wears her work in the way she holds her shoulders, in the way she speaks; it’s all there. Alice doesn’t wear her ‘work.’ Alice doesn’t wear her ‘years.’ Alice has to be a liar, because otherwise. Otherwise. Otherwise things are bad bad bad bad bad bad. But she wasn’t apparently lying about just wanting someone to chat to.
“What about Miss Marple? I used to love Agatha Christie novels. They Came From Baghdad.”
Izzy Montoya
“Not yet.” she rarely has time for movies, for activities outside work, so it’s no wonder that those times are reserved for more important things. Like sex. And Xbox. “The Mystery Masterpiece mini-series was pretty good though.”
As for Ms. Marple, she has no opinion until after she’s slammed that tequila shot again, taking it without so much as a wince, a breathy ahhhh afterwards signaling the burn is just fine, thank you very much, as she sets the shot glass down on the bartop.
“I hated they were always so fucking surprised that a woman could come up with the fucking answers before they could.” Truth, that.
Alice
(( Ack Elsa – no come back! ))
Alice
Izzy drinks like she was born drinking. Like maybe instead of mother’s milk it was mother’s tequila or something. Alice doesn’t judge. Alice, for all her professed disinterest or innocence in the workings of law enforcement, has spent her fair share of hours with cops, detectives and other public servants who’ve been empowered to use guns if necessary (absolutely). And she’s seen them drink before. She’s even waited until they’ve drunk good and deep before drinking, good and deep.
Alice chuckles. And Alice has a pleasing chuckle, too, light on water, a dirty word from a lover at just the right time, red against black: lovely.
“Yeah, well – fiction doesn’t work unless it’s realistic, right? And let’s face it. That’s about as true to life as you can get. I would be intrigued by a gender reversal – maybe there’s some scifi novel out there where it’s a bunch of woman shocked that a man can manage to put two and two together.”
Izzy Montoya
“I know I’m always fucking shocked.”
She smirks, slightly, before running her fingers through her hair again, briefly scratching at the back of her skull, before she settles that arm back on the bartop again. She goes to work slowly peeling the label from the bottle, little tiny bit, by little tiny bit.
As for a gender reversal book. “Probably.” But she has no real opinion on it past that. after all – she works hard breaking gender lines because she has too -she doesn’t read about them for fun.
Alice
This time, it’s not a chuckle – it’s an outright laugh. “Do you work alone or do you have a partner? Is he a dick about you not having a dick?”
Izzy Montoya
Does she have a partner… That brings a smirk to her lips, but somehow this one is different. This one is… softer, somehow. But the difference is gone so quickly it might as well not been there at all…
“I have a partner. And no – he’s rather fond of my fucking anatomy just the way it is.”
Alice
[A PARTNER HUHHHHH?????????? A SEXY PARTNER? Percept + Empathy. What’s that softening, foo’. You in loooove?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Izzy Montoya
[It is something she’d never admit too – this L word folks seem to think means anything at all. Derek is her partner – at work, and at home. There is evidence that she is, perhaps, nearing that L word, but she will not give it thought, will not admit a thing…
but she moved across the country with him, to share a home with him, to share a job with him, to make a life with him.
Love? Is for teenagers.
[she’s TOTALLY there – admitting it, or not] ]
the creep
[BRB weeping into my beer because Izzy is like the Kinfolk version of Sid and that’s just so damned tragic.]
Izzy Montoya
[*LMAO* god help us if those two ever meet…]
the creep
[Seriously Derek and Jeff will get their hearts broken.]
Alice
[Hahaha]
Alice
Now, Alice – Alice is a perceptive creature. A perceptive creature who, when Izzy makes the comment (brash [once upon a time, shocking]) about her anatomy, about her partner, gives the detective a studious look, and by the end of the look, she is smiling faintly. An I know what yo-o-ou don’t know naaaa nana na naaaa naaaa sort of smile; almost coy.
“Aw, shucks. That’s gotta be nice – how long have you two been together?”
Izzy Montoya
Her brow furrows, slightly, as she shoots Alice a look.
“He just made Detective – before we transferred. We’ve worked together a couple months.. why the hell are you looking at me like that…”
It could be that she really has no idea….
Alice
[Hmm. Charisma + Expression – YOU KNOW WHY I’M LOOKING AT YOU LIKE THAT. OBNOXIOUS KID SISTER EXPRESSION ACTIVATE. Maybe?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Alice
Why the hell are you looking at me like that, Izzy says, and baby, a picture’s worth a thousand words and Alice’s a reeeeealllllly pretty fucking artful picture. Alice doesn’t say anything — not yet. She cocks an eyebrow. And it is a very eloquent eyebrow.
Her voice however is neutral: “That’s cool. Transferred together, huh? Well, welcome to ‘the beat.’ That’s what you guys say to each other, right?” Alice hops off the barstool. “The beat?”
Izzy Montoya
Izzy’s gaze narrows farther still as she studies that look. That eloquent eyebrow. That slight change in expression that suggests it was a stupid question, that it was soemthing she does TOO know, and that the child [because looking like that, she can be nothing but a child, right?] is positively gleeful at the prospects…
Welcome to the beat, she says, and Izzy snorts, and turns back to her beer. “Sure, kid.”
She’ll just pretend that look doesn’t exist. She’s pretty good at that.
Alice
“I hope you are your partner are happy together,” Alice says. “I’m going to check outside for my ride now; thanks a million for the conversation. You’re pretty nice.”
Izzy Montoya
She shoots her a look, again, her brows furrowing, confused. Such things might lead other women to introspection, and examination of feelings, but Izzy isn’t other women. Not by a long shot.
She doesn’t say anything else, she just lifts her beer in salute. Though anyone who knows her would scoff at the idea Detective Montoya being ‘pretty nice’ but truth be told, she hasn’t threatened to shoot anyone…
[Well, anyone but Ki, and it’s not HER fault he’s a bloomin’ idiot. AND he started it. So that doesn’t count.]
…in weeks. Well, days. Ok. Today.
Alice
Alice waves when Izzy shoots her a look, two fingers in the hair, the other hand in the pocket of her jeans — and then she sashays out the door and into the night. And you know what? The night swallows that little girl up whole; she pauses next to the shrine; she pauses next to the church; the alleys are teeming, seething — and this a dirty, sad place. Alice crosses herself just as if she were Catholic, and her ride is here. A car, a trusted servant: and she’s gone — shadows take her.
That’s how it goes, this time.