The Arrival of Andy Jacob

[Due Machiavelli]

The coachdriver was as mad as Andy was bent in the wrong direction. His was a soul that careened wildly in him like the canter of the f*cking horses that driver had thundering from one hellhole to the next. He knew where he was headed; it was the same road and the same destination. The ragged curtains tossed like seizures beside him. He peered out at the streets or strung out and wiry and soggy, which occured to him as a strange color to describe a city, but was so - out of whack, sharp to the touch, abrasive.

He slid the driver coins, not bills. "Always this rainy?"

The driver chortled. "You ne'r been 'ere?"

"Once. Twice."

"It's win'r course tha weat'r be shit."

"Where does a fellow get a map?"

"Town Central"

Andy shrugged the codger off and turned into the wet air. Andy blended into the dank and dark. A snake amongst other snakes. An even stranger thought occured to him. Something he'd heard one upon a time. It was late and he knew that Town Central wouldn't be open, not now. So he did what that saying told him to do when he in doubt: go with the wind. It howled around him and Andy bruised after it, a mean graze in the ruined anatomy of this town.

"Brother," He said to the shadows that he knew made up the figure of his other half. His hands were digging through their papers as if to look for something vital, "Andy Jacob is coming in to town." The corner of his lips twitched, "I thought a good test of his usefulness would be with Jennet. See if he can pull her roots up from the ground."

Everyone that knew Andy Jacob knew him to be a mean sort of dog that wasn't messed with lightly. If anything it was because the man had a dangerous desperation to him. He'd do anything. The Brothers, well, they had come to a certain understanding about themselves which said that they were above certain things. Not the violence, not the blood or the tragedy, just too much of the personal exchanges that made getting ahead a social bother. There wasn't much patience with them, when they saw a problem the solution was to see it dead or maimed. The violence of it all was the music that they understood and could nod along to. It was some of the negotiations which could be lost on them. Like dogs gone feral they saw the ultimate brutality often as the answer to their problems. A ruler could not stay in power long with such a wretched disposition and treatment of the people. There needed to be another perspective to their monochromatic ways.

Not that Andy Jacob was radically different. His brand was different, it wasn't whiskey or scotch but a vodka with a hard, clear kick. There was something decidedly still normal about the man. Maybe it was his reactions. Maybe there just seemed something more justified than mad about what he did to people.

These were memories he had. What Andy Jacob was now, what creature he had become or not become, they could not assume. For all he knew the burning down of the Orpheum had been his work, his incompetence and Andy Jacob would be nothing more than a dumb lackey amoung their men, just another pawn on the chess board. He didn't want to believe it, though, that the man had lost the distinction he'd been known for. Without the Orpheum there was nothing chaining the bad dog to home, so why not go to another? Especially if the food and violence was ample and promised more.

"We must be careful." Said to his Brother, opening the door to the Hive and looking out to another night where there were sheets of ran, "A fallen king will always try to take the throne again. Not ours," his eyes went to his Brother with a grin, "I'll rip the heart from him if he does. I'll be to the docks, then, I see a new ship at the harbor." The long coat he adjusted, pulling the hood down long and starting for the edge, outlined in a halo of white as the rain bounced off of him. Over by Rogue's Tavern where Jennet was still being a thorn in their paw.

Not for much longer.

[Sow The Devil]

Weeds: they spread fast. Time and again. Rip them out, throw your chemicals, set them on fire... they'll come back. There's something to be said about a weed, pest or no, like the grass that grows up through the cracks of concrete. Brave? Stupid? Or simply persistent. Persistence got things done. Persistence got you through the cracks.-----

There's only a few things you gotta know 'bout me. One: I dislike redheads. I hate em. I don't wanna know 'bout em. They're always the same; easy to light and fuckin' hard to put out. So meetin' the dreamy faced little thing at Seaside Sam's was never gonna go well, and she works at Madison's bar now... Another story for you. I'll tell it. Gimme a moment.

Two: I don't like cow... people. None of them slingin' wild west freakshows. I say get back to the desert or fuckin' prairies and keep your horse ridin' bullshit for the rodeo. That said, that said, hold on a minute.... That said, however much a pain my ass she proved to be, Madison... despite my prejudices 'gainst her, was alright. In the end... while I don't quite get what happened, in my estimations... she's some kind of unlikely angel. 'Sall I'm asayin'.

Jessamine: I still feel bad about that one. Kid's six feet under. Sweet, sweet girl. I done wrong there. But it wasn't me... not that time, not all me. Yeah, I wanted Jessa, gods did I want her. But I didn't kill her. It was the.. the black thing. That wasn't the Straw, he made me get her, he made me take her, but it was the black thing that gave her an exit wound.

Brentan: My brother, he is innocent.



The Strawman: He exists. It's why I went to Leiber to begin with, and then he got all indignant and condescending and I told him what I thought. I am not mad. I am a lot of nasty fuckin' things, but I ain't crazy. You wanna know? I'll tell you. I'll tell you the whole fuckin' shebang.

Someday.


This sets the scene. Now, watch....


--- Andy steps away from the door of the Smoking Rabbit, and heads inside. His eyes red as the glowing end of his habit as he ashed the cigarette in the nearest empty glass and roved the room for a sight. He had always hated this place, until this time: they'd cleaned it up a little, and then greased it right up again, the air was almost... dare he think it, enticing. This was a den for a fox like him. He smiled. He cruised. He listened to the room. He sat, he waited, he twitched, he lit up another cigarette. There were others like him here. He could smell them. Hear them. Feel them. The world crept in a little closer about him, tightened, released. On every exhale he sunk a deeper into the muck of his muddy, eddying thoughts. The wild zone of the room.


Yeah, his types were here alright. "S'right", he murmured with an intense glare at a few men fixing a poolgame.

Weeds. Weeds like Andy. Smoke veiled his whiskered face.

Weeds.



A coach pulled up on the curb in a roaring spit of puddle water.

[Due MachiaveIli]

Territorial instinct stiffened his spine at the mention of a new hand. Not sure he wanted to share in all the fun. However, he trusted his brother as no other. So would cede the moment to his wishes. You could be sure though, he'd be watching this new guy closely for any signs of deceit.

He leaned against the wall as his brother spoke in a voice that sounded almost excited. That alone was odd, rarely did his brother express any emotion even relatively close to excitement. Always cold and calculating was his Mirror. Not prone to impulse and flashes of chaos as he was. At times he wondered just how boring that would be but then in his usual self awareness he brushed it off and went on about what ever madness held his attention.

"I agree that this may indeed be the answer to the wench problem we seemed to have acquired. " As usual the woman managed to irritate him. Still perturbed by the demands she'd made. The disrespect in her attitude. Ah well, perhaps that thorn would soon be removed..

"A dethroned king is apt to find a knife in his back sooner than a new throne to sit upon..." He shared a grin with his brother then gathered the men as His brother set out for the meet. He and the men would be in position before the meet went down. There was no way he'd let him walk into what could be a trap.

[Due Machiavelli]

Cold and calculating. It wasn't just his mirror that saw him this way but the men that worked for them. They saw the distance in his eyes when he looked at them as if they were far away or some sort of strange object. It was his brand of antisocial, the inability to look at another and sympathize. He spit on the ground. Someone told him that made him a sociopath. He stepped through a puddle. A scholar told him that there was no such thing as sociopaths, that it was just a term people used when they thought someone couldn't feel.

It wasn't about feeling or not feeling. That was idiotic, of course he felt something. It was about connecting. Strange that he and his brother should be so wretchedly removed from society, even when they were right in the midst of it. Like the true understanding of interaction never connected in their brains and everyone else should be observed as the odd and irritating. When they were young and looked at one another, they knew. The inability to empathize, to connect with the feelings of other was the lens through which they saw the world-- and the only other that understood that separation was each other. The alienation from the world had caused them to create their own. They chose to occupy the same planet.

He walked by the dock and an old post in the ground as he proceeded on to the checkpoint just outside of town. The world sputtered and stuttered on his head and down his slick rain coat. He was smoking a lot lately, tossing his buds wherever. Waiting like he did... smoking made him feel like he was passing the time. The white from his cigarette disappeared into black ash and fell away. Five minutes had passed, so said the cigarette as he took as draw on it and walked. Was Andy worth it?

Was his reflection right about him?

He spit on the ground, climbed a muddy, rainy rise in and then stopped outside the Smoking Rabbit. Not a bad place, just a few miles from town. None of the vantage points of Rogues Tavern. The link to the merchants, to the heart of trade. The men here just wanted a drink. Maybe even a lay after a few beers skewed their judgment concerning just how attractive the women in this place was. They'd seen a time or two. A good gap between home and the meeting place of another man, scratching at scabs and letting them bleed over anew. Or was that him? He opened the door to the place and pushed back his hood.

Clean shaven, sharp. Methodical and perhaps patient. Well, patient by comparison, anyways. Patient when it came to something he wanted, not something that irritated him. He'd slugged a woman on the side of a head with a fireplace log once. Now, he couldn't remember what she'd said to unnerve him so. Just that he had done it. It was usually his other half who started the violence. Was he starting to get just as unstable. Was there enough room on their planet for two mad maniacs? Was there enough room on their planet for Andy Jacob?

"So it's true, then?" upon spotting Andy and cutting him a smile, "Wiping the ash off the bottoms of your shoes?"

[Sow The Devil]

Twitch Jacob came alive in company - he was on show and possessing an effortless catch to prove something even after his world had caught alight and smoldered around him. Prove he still had some knack. If he didn't have anything else he still had his ego. Despite the lunatic kingdom he had ran in, he felt like his own king, and life, he saw as a game, a chess set, manipulation and subterfuge regular traits of any pawn. And Andy was not so foolish to know he had been one all along - whether it be to his own wicked-wild streak or the perpetual itchy eye of a Straw Man, the maniac behind his own cruel mania and its consequence.

His angular face spun as his ugly humor caught the leash of the other's attention, hanging off of it like a deranged daredevil riding on the bonnet of a car, enjoying the screech of every wheel, blare of horn, smashed windscreen surprise. His grin was as wire-cut as the rest of him. "Even assholes have manners, bro. Not gon step 'side your palace without wipin' the shit off my heels." He gestured widely to the room around them. He shrugged and threw out a hand limply, "whadda ya take me for, cat? S's been a while.."

His speech rose and tumbled in old speak, speak no one spoke anymore, like he was wading in some dead era, he half remembered while everyone was trying to forget.

"This joint fit for a prince..." He nodded, approvingly, glanced around, cut a lazy, lazy wink at the woman lazing against the upright with a fantasy of blonde hair worn long and tousled. She adjusted her bodice to spill some more tit, and that wink only got lazier.

"Ya gon' fix me cash first or am I workin' free? Ya know I a'int got nothin' left this time around." Cut to the chase and running. Black eyes settled on the man beside him. His head ticking a million tracks at once. He felt like his head was skipping thoughts, then abruptly stuck in a groove. He didn't like talking about his own grief - the thing that stunted his thought train - the loss of his own brother, the fall of his own empire. It was embarassing, even for Andy, to be here with nothing but that wild streak, crude intelligence and a lean capacity for violence. But that was what them Mirrors had wanted. Before, and again. Orpheum or no. Andy was still kicking. He was still something to be reckoned with and worth a throw to battle.


"Ya gon' fix me up firs'? Then we talk slap."


He gestured to the stairs, for the discretion of a booth up the way.


The Hive had mentored, tutored, prepared, honed, sharpened Andy for the world. He hoped the Mirrors would see they'd bred a good shark. Home made poison. Something to strangle, something to sting.



The blonde took a seat at the piano and began pumping out a morose, antique ballad, one puffed white sleeve drooping off of her shoulder. She played with sympathy and conviction and seduction. Andy felt a rock slide down his throat - it had been Brentan's favourite song. Meanwhile, his dick was going hard. He adjusted his seat on the stool.

[Due Machiavelli]

Smoke and mirrors. The Brothers had made themselves interchangeable, as if together they were one entity. There was some truth to that. Though there was no conscience to reel them in, there was only their differences in personality to give criticism to one another, to add pause and greater thought to their actions. Often it was him, calculating it along the way but his reflection told him to take action. Not to plan something out like such a script and just. do. it.

The talk of business, of money, made something like a dry smile appear on his lips. Wasn't it reassuring when a paid off hand asked for money and not justification? Greed and violence, those should be the motivators. Not justice, not reason or cause. What he wanted Andy to chase was no concept but an item he could supply. That way, no matter how the fish were changing he would still cast his net as he was told, a Brother behind him nodding that it was good. How long would this satisfy him? If it was brief and still gave him Jennet's head he could live with the rift and loss of Andy Jacob.

A few of those in the room recognized the Brother. Not by name but by reputation, by association. It was said after the war many of the women got sick, some died. It was said that he and his brother stayed in a house with the rotting corpse of their mother, not entirely sure that she was dead or unable to wrap their minds around it. They had learned their father was dead a week ago. Starving in a house with spoiled perfume in the air and just each other. Something about that day made them give in to one another, erase distinctions and desire that no one distinguish the East from the West. At noon, no one could tell the difference. Nothing could hurt you if you didn't even know who you were.

"Upstairs," his nod of agreement, he jammed his hands into his pockets and took the lead to where Andy Jacob had indicated. As he walked, drops of water fell off his coat bread crumb style.

The booth matched the decor of what was there. A table beaten, names and messages scratched in. The cloth of the seat slashed in some places, the yellowed stuffing beneath billowing out like a pillow from the cut. Two old ash trays full of hand rolled cigarettes. His were rolled neatly, the butts his saw looked like drunken attempts. Maybe just sloppy ones. A man would argue what the point was to a carefully organized burn, organized or scattered it burned all the same. He'd say everything.

"We'll cut you a fourth of what we intend to pay you," The Brother said, folding his hands on that map of a table, "Because you've become more of a story, Andy Jacob, than a person. We want to know the stories are true. We want to know your worth." If it was anything like what they had known, he'd be worth it. The Brothers talked... odd for the area. Part of it was in a language they shared with one another and that they forgot no one else was part of that language.

"Next job you get, you get half in the beginning and the rest when it's done. If you fail... you don't get anything, you owe us the half we fronted you. We're not paying for anything but a job that's finished. That first half isn't to ease your woes regardless-- it's to make the pursuit of your goal easier. Make no mistake, we carve up our losses from wallets and bone."

An elbows on the table. A slow smile appeared, his eyes went to the stairs and then to Andy Jacob, "What do you know about Jennet Shorditch?" The woman that was now running the Rogues Tavern. The woman who had rounded up some loyalty with the merchants against their designs. The woman that had decidedly gotten in the way.