FicWad

"That's the story," Stella said as she lifted her glass of champagne and took a delicate sip. "I ended up shoving my foot in my mouth and now I've got to learn how to sing, isn't that just peachy?"

Dimitri smiled across the table. The candlelight made his eyes dark, but no less expressive than they had been on that first night. He'd taken her out to dinner at a fancy joint. They were still on the salads but she'd ordered a nice juicy steak for a main course. This place was on the down low though, still a speakeasy under all the glitz and glam, but the clientele was high-class. The big men ate and drank here, but Dimitri was apparently buddy-buddy with them too, if the greetings on the way in were any indication.

She'd gotten used to this though, and had taken her time relating the story of Vivian and Dick and the blocking debacle. She waited for him to respond and it took him a bit. He'd been attentive and interested. In fact, he'd been nothing but perfect the entire night.

There was something entirely wrong with the picture, but Stella wasn't going to turn down a good meal just on the basis of a feeling.

"Vivian," he murmured finally, setting his fork down. He laughed suddenly and shook his head. "She has not changed."

"She talked like she knew you, ducky."

"She should," he said. "She is my mother."

Stella gaped at him for a long moment. It was a perfect Dennis impression. Even on her nights out away from him, the director managed to haunt her. Dimitri seemed to notice her surprise, however, and shrugged. "I did tell you my family ages well."

"So she had you when she was what, five?" she asked, poking her fork at him.

"I do not know how old she was," he said, going back to his salad.

Stella pursed her lips. "She isn't Russian."

"No, she is not."

"Which means you're not Russian. Unless you were raised by your father in Stalingrad or something."

He smiled. "My mother raised me," he said. "My father was more fond of my older brothers, Giovanni and Peter. He did not have much time for myself, my younger brother, or our sister."

"Giovanni, I've noticed, is an Italian name - and he sounds like a Brit."

He shrugged again and leaned across the table. He brought his elbow up, set it on the table, and pinched his fingers together. "Would you lika me to sound Italian?" he said, his accent so suddenly shifted that she had to blink, stare, and make sure this was the same man who'd been sitting here moments earlier. "Perhaps I should sound more British, luv?"

She shook her head. "No... the Russian's fine. Do you speak the language?"

"I speak many languages." He smiled, his accent again Russian.

"I don't get you," she said finally and sighed. She was starting to get a small headache. To correct this, she took a sip of her champagne. Sometimes it helped.

His smile seemed to fade, but she realized that it was still present, only hidden. His lips were curved only slightly. "There are many things about me I cannot tell you," he said. "Many things I wish I could, but I cannot, for the time being. Please do not ask how I do these things."

That didn't sit well with her. "But you'll tell me eventually, huh?"

"You will know soon enough, if you wish to." The brilliant smile returned and Stella felt herself mollified for the time being - but only just.

However, there was something weighing on her mind. "This isn't gonna get me in trouble, is it?"

"No." He shook his head. "You are not now, nor will you be in any danger, unless you put yourself there. This is why I cannot tell you everything."

"Because it's dangerous for me to know?" He nodded. Suddenly, she wondered what she was doing with this man and wondered more about the fact that she was still here, at the table, calmly finishing her salad. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would go back to the house tonight. She knew she would get up in the morning and sing with Gretchen. She knew she would go on stage and learn her part, albeit, she would play it poorly. She knew she would do it - and she knew he knew she would do it. There was no conversation in this. That was the way things were.

Stella wondered why this was the least bit okay in anyone's book - especially her's. "You're awful cheerful tonight," she said, setting her fork down on her now empty salad plate and pushing it aside. "How come?"

"I received a message this morning." His grin was twofold now as he raised his glass. "I smile," he said. "Because there is a man in Boston who is going to have a very bad night."

*

There were, in fact, several men in Boston who were having a bad night. Fortunately for most of them, they were dead.

They had been harassed by things they could only call monsters. None of the men had signed on this job expecting monsters. It wasn't what one would call the natural order of business. One went to work, guarding the treasure that the bossman wanted guarded. Sometimes ya hadta get inta scraps, or take out the trash. Sometimes ya jes hadta take someone fer a ride and leave 'em at tha bottom of tha harbor, but that's nothin'. Ain't like there's gonna be any real monstas out there, right boyo? It's worth tha dough, see?

But that was before the two gentlemen had come to the dock house. The one guy was tall, had a top hat and a cane. He dressed like some frilly patsy, but once he started moving - once that sword came outta the cane, then shit hit the wall, along with a lotta bones and guts and blood.

The other one was short, thin, with very little muscle and a whole lotta bone. He had some black bandana tied across his eyes, like he was blind. He shouldn't've been able to see anything, but he moved like he knew where everything was. Then that blindfold came off and there weren't no eyes underneath...

Little Louis was the only one who'd survived. He'd runaway from home at sixteen, gotten a job for a local runner, doing dirty work. He was a tough kid, a big kid, the kinda kid the big bosses liked. He could take a beating and he could give a beating. He'd been in the racket for three years, was a hulking nineteen year old now. He could do anything, seen it all, killed men with his bare hands. The boss had handed him over to a guy who needed something guarded. The guy paid big; the boss didn't ask no questions.

But he'd never seen anything like the monsters. They came, they killed, they chased down those who ran and - and it wasn't murder. It was a massacre. The worst part was the bodies.

They ate the friggin bodies!

They got the treasure and they left. The no-eyed man had turned and looked right at Little Louis as he cowered between two large crates on the docks and those holes weren't holes. They were shiny black marbles, beetles in the guy's head. Little Louis pissed himself then and there. He hadn't seen anything like that before and swore that if he lived to see the morning sun, he'd join the priesthood.

They hadn't been the worst part.

The worst part was sitting in this little room with the hiring man - the big man who paid the boss for the privilege of the men. He sat in a chair, gray pinstriped suit and dapper gray hat, all dolled up - even had real ruby rings on his fingers. He wore his pansy-ass (but nobody would ever say that to his face, oh no; they weren't that stupid) hair long, tied it back. He had dark blue eyes that were almost as bad to look at as the blind folded monster's.

He was completely calm, but Little Louis had been around long enough to know that that could change in an instant.

Finally, the dapper man spoke. "Well that's interesting," he said. "I never thought they'd side with him."

Little Louis stayed quiet. That was what you did. You kept your trap shut and let them talk it out.

"A temporary situation. I'm sure I can remedy it. I should call on Papa. He can bring them into line fast enough." That seemed to satisfy him and the dapper man stood, and dug into the inside pocket of his pinstriped jacket. Little Louis braced himself, but instead of the expected gun, a wad of cash - crisp hundred dollar bills - was pulled out and tossed in the frightened man's lap. "For services rendered and dishes broken," was the explanation.

Little Louis knew a dismissal when he heard one and got up, running out of the room. He arrived at the Cathedral the next day, went to confession, and never looked back.