the green fairy

Who: Andrei and Ivanka
Where: The Green Fairy
When: Midday

Ivanka had learned to love the smell of The Green Fairy. It was a mix of musk, perfume, the smoke of cigars and the faint smell of absinthe. The whole building was a small, old converted bar, with a stage put in. The burlesque dancers usually started at noon, and continued on throughout the rest of the day. There was almost always a strip tease going on for the amusement of the men. These were usually the women talented enough in dancing to escape the brothel, but still tied down by the Syndicate.

Ivanka wasn't due on stage until the evening hours. She had earned the privilege of many eyes, which suited her nicely. The more people watching her, meant the more likely one of the bosses would see her, and recognize her face later on. When she wasn't on stage, she usually wore a revealing dress, and "served drinks." Though, after delivering one drink she could usually be found wrapped around a handsome, or rich man.

This afternoon was no different. Ivanka sashayed across the room towards a cluster of tables, bottle of expensive Vodka in hand.

The Syndicate had been in such constant need of Andrei's talents that even he was welcoming a break from ‘consulting’. But even if a bit more tired than usual, he was in too good a mood to sit around alone at home; hell, even if he was in a bad mood – and he almost never was – he hardly sat around at home. Walking into the Green Fairy in the afternoon meant that it wasn’t particularly populated as he and his current ‘gang’ claimed a table. But not crowded was just the way he liked it; although he still steered the group over to a corner booth.

Andrei was a man who appreciated many things, even if he never loved them. A few of those things were good food, good music, and… flexibility. He appreciated flexibility in his work and with his schedule; and he was fascinated by the display of it put on by dancers. There was just something about some people’s ability to bend in such a way that he knew for a fact was severely painful for others. So in his downtime he preferred lounging about at the Kitten Club or the Green Fairy.

But the current girl on stage was doing an uninventive strip tease that wholly disinterested him – even though it captivated his current company. His gang consisted of just three guys. Most people, when given the option, preferred not to hang around him. But there were some people who were braver – or stupider – than most, so even a man like him could get an entourage. One of his guys called over for some vodka, and Andrei bared his teeth into a smile as he noted his favorite dancer to watch was carrying a bottle.

Ivanka heard the call, and gave one of her more congenial smiles as she turned and headed towards the men at the table. She descretely sized them up, looking to see if any of them were of interest. If you were higher up in the syndicate, unless you'd just recently been invited to the Green Fairy, Ivanka probably knew your name. Three of the men were vaguely familiar, but not important enough to set off her radar. Then there was Andrei. Ivanka hadn't discounted him yet, he definitely had potential, but she hadn't put out a solid effort either. She was still unsure if his potential was worth the hunt.

"Hello boys." Though Ivanka had no issues with grammar, unless she was drunk, she still was very clearly Russian in the way she spoke. She topped off some drinks for each of them, winking. "Are you enjoying yourselves?"

Andrei’s smile grew even wider and just a touch more predatory as he leaned towards her, “I’d enjoy it more seeing you bent over.” was the reply in Russian. One guy laughed and another chuckled, but the third only sat there and grunted. 'Boarish Boris', Andrei called him (he was very fond of puns). The Boar was the only one who seemed to get that sexually was the last way Andrei had meant it. Grinning now and leaning back, he switched to English and nodded towards the stripping girl. “On the stage, of course.” He said it in his innocent manner… which never really came off a hundred percent.

Ivanka was used to comments like these, it came with the territory. When she was a younger girl, this kind of comment would have made her blush, but now she just clicked her tongue at him admonishingly. She never broke her smile, running one finger along his jawline. Ivanka's touch was so gentle that it could just barely be felt. "You know I don't dance until the night time." And in Russian. "Good things come to those who wait."

“Is that a promise?” Andrei didn’t mind the touch, he liked physical contact: he just liked it in a way that the participating party usually didn’t. Her touch brought out a gleam in his eye and thoughts blacker than the shirt on his back. He reached up and brought her hand down, but he didn’t let go. Instead he held her fingers in his hand for a moment, lazily examining them. They were very soft and very pretty – and he bet they would be very sensitive. Fingers usually were. It was funny how a paper cut could just sting like a bitch.

But his touching her was making one of the bouncers nervous. The guy hadn’t moved yet, but Andrei noted the man tensing out of the corner of his eye. So he dropped her hand and folded his behind his head, watching her. “I guess I’ll just have to wait, then.”

Touch did not scare Ivanka when she was working at The Green Fairy. In fact, she often encouraged it to an extent that borderlined on scandalous. If she was advanced on too aggressively, there was usually a bouncer hanging around, and they'd had to take action more than once before. It helped that she was sleeping with the boss.

Still, she had heard the rumors about Andrei. While she wasn't scared as much as she was curious, she couldn't help feeling slight relief when he released her hand. This made her upset with herself. She told herself that she was in much more control of this place than he was. Clearly, she needed something to drink, to smooth her nerves.

She poured a shot for herself, and a shot for Andrei. His men were clearly not important enough for her to pay any more attention to. "To your health." she said, winking, before knocking back the shot.

He watched her take her shot, a lazy smile dancing on his lips. Even though the place wasn’t crowded, it had enough people that he had no intention of drinking. Alcohol fuzzied the reflexes and the mind did stupid things. And even though it was doubtful somebody would try something here, he knew he wasn’t Mr. Popular. And he wasn’t going to give any disgruntled drunkard an open shot.

“I have had enough fun today, my dear.” He pushed his glass towards her, “You enjoy this for the both of us.”

His guys seemed annoyed at being left out, but none of them seemed upset – or brave – enough to complain. They tried hard not to get on his nerves. It amused him, because the only things that really bugged him were death and interruptions.

"You don't know the fun that you are missing out on, clearly." Ivanka said, though it didn't stop her from taking the other shot. She knew she could handle one more, and if he changed his mind, there was a whole bottle where that came from. Ivanka drank on a very regular basis, though she usually strayed away from a whole lot of drinking all at once. She liked to spread out her booze.

Still, she needed to know whether he was worth her time, and she could often gauge that in how a person directed themselves and the people around them. Most of the higher bosses had their mistresses, and weren't terribly easy to get close to. If Andrei had the potential, and she made the right moves, she might move in the direction she was hoping. It all came down to if he was worth her time.

"A gentleman would have invited me to sit down." She teased. No one in this establishment was what one would call a gentleman. She looked at him with smokey eyes, and her signature "I'm a fantastic shag," smile that had taken months to perfect.

Andrei was pretty good with reading people – well enough to excel at what he did and well enough to stay alive and out of prison. But the emotion-stirring cues just didn’t register with him... they kind of required some emotion on the other end to connect with. Huh, he should add 'being on good behavior' to his 'Bugs Me' list. Because she did succeed in that, despite his tired muscles, he was thinking how wanted to do considerably more to this woman than talk. And his expression reflected that. ...Although it probably wasn’t quite on whatever mark she was aiming for.

He cocked his head and smiled at her, and then flashed his gang a wonderfully mischievous look. “Now I don’t think I’ve ever been called gentle, eh boys?” The guys laughed, some of it nervous; except for Boris the Boar (re: Bore) who only kept his eyes to the stage. Andrei returned to facing her, but his mind was obviously elsewhere as his expression scrunched in thought. It was almost comical as long as you couldn’t guess what he was thinking. Finally he focused his eyes and attention back on her, extremely amused with something. “Although I do I like to go slow.”

He followed this apparent joke with a deep burst of laughter, none of which was shared by his gang.

Ivanka still had hiccups when it came to understanding other people's English, and in this situation, she wasn't sure if he was being confusing, or if she simply didn't understand this particular nuance of English. She didn't like for people to repeat themselves, in most situations the things that they said were so trivial that it didn't matter. Instead she simply smiled, and joined his laughter with a small tinkle of her own. "I'm sure you do."

Andrei was practically glowing, pleased with her laughter. He infinitely preferred it to the chosen silence of his gang. What was the point of having people around if they were just... unresponsive? That was his philosophy, at least. He leaned forward a bit, resting an elbow upon the table. "So how have the past days been treating you? I know for some they have not been.. too pleasant." His gang chuckled at the obvious allusion to the O'Malleys and recent events.

Ivanka pursed her lips into a smile. She'd heard about the O'Malleys, oh had she heard. It was all the girls could talk about, and the gossip backstage at the Fairy could get fiery. Ivanka pulled a chair from a neighboring table, and sat down. She was not interested in standing anymore. "The past days have been treating me... fabulously." She could help but feel giddy at the thought that another mob was failing. The more power the Konovich had, the more she felt validation about just what she was doing. "How have they been treating you?" She leaned forward in her seat so that her best assets were being shown off. It was something she was always aware of.

At that question Andrei was postitively beaming. "I don't think they could have treated anyone better." Although his body was tired, and he would have preferred more sleep the past couple of nights, he had no desire to deny that he had enjoyed the past days thoroughly. "My uncles have found me useful in tough times." He didn't elaborate any further as to what 'use' he had been put to. But it obvious that, while recent events had shaken some Syndicate members down, Andrei was the better off for it.

"Ooh, how good for you." She was intrigued. Most of the men who talked to Ivanka at The Green Fairy tended to talk about sex, the alcohol, and Ivanka's body, naked and clothed. Even though Andrei wasn't being terribly straightforward, he did seem to be talking about something else entirely, and Ivanka wan't to hear more. "How useful have they found you?"

“Oh, extremely,” his blue eyes, catching the dim light around them, were literally gleaming with pleasure. If he had his way, he would’ve been positively bragging about his exploits of the past day: about the man whose suspicions of DiGiovanni contacts Andrei had confirmed, about his time with the Babylon whore, and the numbers runner who fancied turning righteous snitch, or about the non-mob grunt on payroll who was thinking of getting uncooperative… and there were others. Most were kissing fishes in the river, and some had been left in more populated areas where they served as an ‘educational’ example. Andrei hadn’t touched the grunt, his visit with him had been strictly verbal. But the guy’s wife? Well, that was another story. But Andrei didn’t have his way, and so the happy little details of his exciting days were left for others to clean up or the police to discover. Instead, he had to satisfy himself with,

“When belts are tightened, per se, what is left is put to greater use – more responsibilities if you please.” He punctuated his self-humored response with brief laugh before continuing, “I have been concerned with business and meetings and… getting to know people.”

He leaned back, the corners of his mouth still basking in a smile. Some would say he wasn’t a people person, but he couldn’t disagree more. After all, he could accomplish in a matter of hours – or less than an hour, if he was in a hurry – what most people would spend long mind games to achieve… Hell, all he needed was some quality time and he could a know a person more intimately than their spouse, best friend, or co-workers… Andrei’s smile broke into a grin. He was the biggest fuckin’ people person on the planet!

At the phrase "more responsibilities," Ivanka's eyes flashed with pleasure. This definitely intrigued her. Though Ivanka tended to spend most of her time around the manager of the Fairy, and it had served her well this far, she knew that he couldn't get her any farther than the top billed girl at the Fairy, and that was not as far as Ivanka wanted to go. Andrei was doing something, whatever it was, that got him what sounded like much more than the manager at the fairy.

Ivanka smiled back at Andrei, nonchalantly placing her hand on top of his. "It sounds like you've been having some fun... possibly scaling a few Konovich ladders. I'm impressed."

“Fun? Oh, definitely.” His grin widened at that, as he again lazily surrounded her hand in his own. The soft skin beneath his fingers reminded him of the grunt’s wife. She had been a pretty woman as well. ...Had. As to the climbing comment he only shrugged dismissively, “I have no need for ladders.” It was true – both in the sense that he harbored no desire to climb them and the fact that his direct connections had always perched at the top. At the moment the top held no interest for him. There the work became less hand-on and just more business.

And, hell, Andrei was already bored enough with the recent strictly verbal meetings that, in addition to his usual entertainment, he had been dealt the past couple days. He hadn’t been lying to Ivanka: as paranoia and suspicion held, and various members were killed off, the Syndicate had been putting the members it trusted to greater and varied use. For Andrei, this meant that he was also being used for boring-as-hell jobs such as delivering packages and talking to various parties. Such as tonight he had to talk, and only talk, to the woman who still thought she actually ran Babylon.

Ivanka didn't interpret his response about climbing quite the way he meant it. That is to say, she only recognized one of its meanings, the one that could possibly benefit her the most. Though she prided herself on reading people, sometimes her drive to find another spot a little higher clouded her ability to read. If he didn't need ladders, it meant that he probably knew people, Ivanka thought, and those were people she wanted to meet.

She ran her hand up his arm slightly, her little nails leaving tracks that disappeared almost instantly, but tickled most people's skin. She knew that the soft underside of the arm was a surprisingly sensual part of the body, and it was one she often used. "I would love to hear more about these responsibilities." Her grin was a little foxy now, with just the hint of lust that she was known for.

If Andrei were cat he would have been purring. Partly from the physical contact; but mostly from her interest in his work. He knew full well Ivanka probably didn't know what it was he exactly did, but he couldn't help appreciating the interest in his work. 'Cause not that many people asked. And he found himself to be a man who liked attention... as long as it wasn't in the form of some crowd... or a mob -- he had this thing about crowds turning into mobs. But the pretty lady in front of him definitely didn't constitute any mob, so he was enjoying the moment.

Unfortunately, he didn't live in a world where he was free to discuss his exploits; as if he needed the reminder, Andrei knew without actually looking that the Boar was fixing them with a stare. And even though it was an impassive stare, it was a Significant one. And Andrei knew the significance, and he knew that actually telling Ivanka the details right now? It just wasn't the kind of smart move that synced with Self-Preservation. And he did have a thing about preserving himself.

"And I would love to tell you all about them, my dear." It was true. He would have loved to see her expression change as he disclosed his 'responsibilities'. "But I'm afraid my contract keeps me to a 'need to know' basis." Then, almost whispering as he leaned in, "Maybe one day you'll see for yourself." He grinned at that before pulling away.\

Ivanka smiled back. She saw out of the corner of her eye another high up of the KS walking into The Fairy, and her mind was immediately somewhere else. Andrei seemed promising, but she could tell that she wasn't going to get anything out of him today. He would have to be filed with the rest of her projects.

"Darling, it's been lovely speaking with you." She said, reaching for the vodka bottle. "But sadly, I must leave. I have other matter to attend to." She began to stand up.

Andrei actually managed to look a bit disappointed to see her go... if only because his gang too interested in watching the stripper on the stage to amuse him. But her comment on other matters to attend to made him smile as he remembered that he had other matters as well: a visit with a man who could've leaked some information. The Syndicate wasn't really sure on that point, and it was his job to make sure they would be before heading over to Babylon. He slipped a hand into his pocket, and ran his fingers almost lovingly along the enclosed switchblade resting there. Yes, he was still tired... but it was a small price to pay for doing what he loved.