Dean didn’t like not being in control. For so long he had watched outsiders stagger into Sierra Madre, die by their own hand, their friend’s hand or that of unforgiving surroundings while for two centuries, he had survived all the dangers the Villa had thrown at him.
Oh, he had been in tight spots before. In Sierra Madre, waking up alive in the morning didn’t guarantee your evening will be just as fortunate. But that was just him and his quick wits in a life and ‘not dying tonight’ predicament. Not a bomb around his neck, not some girl, and an old man on the radio dictating where he should go, what he should do, how to do it… An old man who had discovered how to enter the casino in a matter of months while he had been languishing in this hole for-
He stopped himself. Now was not the time for that. Soon he will finally enter the casino and after that… well, he had plan in place. He just had to be present to execute it. Dean looked down at his drink and then up the woman sitting with back to him. He’d question her sense of self-preservation but this suited him fine for when the time came.
There was also the question of his new ‘bow tie’ but he figured he’d cross, burn and bomb that bridge once he got to it.
“So, who’s Danny Parker?” She asked cutting his marching thought process in half. To his credit, he didn’t slip or perform any remotely embarrassing overreaction at this most unexpected question.
“What prompted this on?” He asked curiously in turn, because he really couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would ever ask about that weasel. He couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would even know about Danny Parker, of all people, today.
Her shoulders made a little shrug, “You keep mentioning him. And in a way that makes me think it involved a bullet and his head.”
“Danny Parker… There wasn’t a person alive,” he paused briefly and corrected himself, “alive at the time, who didn’t want to put at least one bullet in that empty head of his. Some would have gladly paid for more than one.” He chuckled, images flashing behind his eyes. Memories from before the war, before the bomb, of people he worked with, people he saw nightly, some of them insufferable, others he just hated – memories of happier, better, different times.
She remained silent, choosing instead to lean on her elbows and forearms and look at him curiously, if curious could be attributed to a blank helmet. A rapt audience – if there was one thing he never got tired of… “Danny Parker was one, if not the, penny-pinching men of his time. He wasn’t an artist, not like I. Money was his only passion, and singing was a yellow-brick road to gaining a whole lot more of it. The cheap, catchy tunes he sang, the polished appearance of a mannequin in boutique store – all of it! Just to squeeze a penny more from the audience, from his agent, even from the record house. And it showed in his performances.”
The Courier wasn’t sure how much to believe him – not the bit about his alleged greed; greed had survived the war perfectly fine and was busily working its way into the new world. It was that Dean Domino didn’t seem like someone who tolerated people on the best of days for some very strange reasons.
“Was he a competition for you?” She asked.
“Competition?!” The ghoul’s head snapped up faster than an angry radscorpion’s tale. “Are you mad?! Danny Parker couldn’t string five notes together and make them sound like cats rutting, let alone make music,” he bolstered loudly. “Competition, she says,” he snorted under his breath lighting another cigar. “As if.”
“That so? His posters, those who aren’t singed and still readable show him playing…”
Dean’s brain short-circuited at ‘poster’ and completely ignored the rest of her words. Like doused in water, the cigar sagged at the corner of his lips. “Come again?”
“What’s the thing called… – a piano, yes. He seemed rather popular, considering the…”
F!Courier/Dean Domino - A Heist - 3a
Oh, he had been in tight spots before. In Sierra Madre, waking up alive in the morning didn’t guarantee your evening will be just as fortunate. But that was just him and his quick wits in a life and ‘not dying tonight’ predicament. Not a bomb around his neck, not some girl, and an old man on the radio dictating where he should go, what he should do, how to do it… An old man who had discovered how to enter the casino in a matter of months while he had been languishing in this hole for-
He stopped himself. Now was not the time for that. Soon he will finally enter the casino and after that… well, he had plan in place. He just had to be present to execute it. Dean looked down at his drink and then up the woman sitting with back to him. He’d question her sense of self-preservation but this suited him fine for when the time came.
There was also the question of his new ‘bow tie’ but he figured he’d cross, burn and bomb that bridge once he got to it.
“So, who’s Danny Parker?” She asked cutting his marching thought process in half. To his credit, he didn’t slip or perform any remotely embarrassing overreaction at this most unexpected question.
“What prompted this on?” He asked curiously in turn, because he really couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would ever ask about that weasel. He couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would even know about Danny Parker, of all people, today.
Her shoulders made a little shrug, “You keep mentioning him. And in a way that makes me think it involved a bullet and his head.”
“Danny Parker… There wasn’t a person alive,” he paused briefly and corrected himself, “alive at the time, who didn’t want to put at least one bullet in that empty head of his. Some would have gladly paid for more than one.” He chuckled, images flashing behind his eyes. Memories from before the war, before the bomb, of people he worked with, people he saw nightly, some of them insufferable, others he just hated – memories of happier, better, different times.
She remained silent, choosing instead to lean on her elbows and forearms and look at him curiously, if curious could be attributed to a blank helmet. A rapt audience – if there was one thing he never got tired of… “Danny Parker was one, if not the, penny-pinching men of his time. He wasn’t an artist, not like I. Money was his only passion, and singing was a yellow-brick road to gaining a whole lot more of it. The cheap, catchy tunes he sang, the polished appearance of a mannequin in boutique store – all of it! Just to squeeze a penny more from the audience, from his agent, even from the record house. And it showed in his performances.”
The Courier wasn’t sure how much to believe him – not the bit about his alleged greed; greed had survived the war perfectly fine and was busily working its way into the new world. It was that Dean Domino didn’t seem like someone who tolerated people on the best of days for some very strange reasons.
“Was he a competition for you?” She asked.
“Competition?!” The ghoul’s head snapped up faster than an angry radscorpion’s tale. “Are you mad?! Danny Parker couldn’t string five notes together and make them sound like cats rutting, let alone make music,” he bolstered loudly. “Competition, she says,” he snorted under his breath lighting another cigar. “As if.”
“That so? His posters, those who aren’t singed and still readable show him playing…”
Dean’s brain short-circuited at ‘poster’ and completely ignored the rest of her words. Like doused in water, the cigar sagged at the corner of his lips. “Come again?”
“What’s the thing called… – a piano, yes. He seemed rather popular, considering the…”