Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Role Playing Stage

Jul-6-2015 11:19

New York, 1938
St. Regis Hotel
Rooftop Nightclub

"So there I was, staring down a barrel INCHES from death...and I told the man, 'darling REALLY, if you simply must shoot me do allow me to remove my earrings. They are Cartier, you know." Molly Maltese paused to take a sip of her Red Snapper, popping the olive neatly between her cherub lips before gnashing it to a pulp. "And the man was quite flummoxed, he said- I say, is that Riza Hawkeye?"

She rose, the group of rapt men in tuxedos and women in glittering dresses and furs murmuring their protests as she wended through their knees. But the apparition she was quite sure had been Riza Hawkeye had vanished in the crowd of New York socialites populating the exclusive terrace.

"Well, this place is a bit ritzy for Riza." she murmured, fairly certain her old acquaintance didn't make a habit of populating social-climbing fetes. And she reasoned, any time Riza had appeared before it was hardly ever for a pleasant cause. Well, maybe that was unfair. It just seemed she was more the swirl-of-furs-and-stiletto-daggers type than a frothy socializer like Molly herself.

Peering around, Molly saw nothing but the shadowed faces of revelers partially cloaked in the smoky haze. She had just been about to give up and go back to her companions when the most shocking hubbub began. Over on the north part of the terrace, she could distinctly hear the shouts of men and panicked screeching of females. Moving forward, she could just make out..

"Did you see... The Ambassador... who could have... murder! Someone has pushed the Ambassador off the building!" Molly picked up speed, expertly weaving through the crowd of panicked voices. Sirens already began to sound twenty stories below. Just as she grasped the ledge and looked over, an all too familiar voice sounded in her left ear.

"Oh hello there, old friend. Lovely breeze out today."

Before her stood Riza Hawkeye herself, looking utterly unruffled as several ladies fainted behind her.

Aug-30-2015 13:13

Silence. There was nothing. No noise filled the area. That was either a good thing for a bad thing. It made Marc feel a bit uneasy. He walked around the sidewalk of the large building looking at the others that overwatched the Consulate. He lit a cigarette as he walked around humming his favorite tune, " A kiss to build a dream on" by Louis Armstrong.

A distinct "crack!" snapped him back to reality. That noise was all too familiar. A rifle. More than one. Then more shots fired. Molly and Riza! He swore to himself for wandering a bit farther than he should have. He sprinted back towards the building.

He ducked behind a corner as two men sprinted from the building and into another across the street. Seconds later a third ran out. Assailants? Instead of using his wrist gun he drew his revolver. He ran into the building, following the noise. A few more gunshots fired. Handguns. Probably return fire.

Marc ran up the stairs feeling his chest grow slightly heavy as he tried to catch his breath. He was not as agile as he was in his youth, and it had also been a while since ran so much.

"Meddling bitch!" Someone yelled. Seconds later a rapid gunshots filled Marc's ears. He burst into the room, gun drawn and ready. "Get the hell down!" Someone yelled.

Right. Marc dropped to the ground. Turning his head, he came face to face with the lifeless body from the Amassador's Secretary. Damn, he thought to himself. Blood poured from what was left of what had been her head.

Marc made his way into the office, finding Molly helping someone whom Marc could only assume was the ambassador.

He knelt down next to her. "Help us out!" She yelled.

"Move your hands," Marc said. He pried her hands back so he could see. Blood gushed from the wound as soon as she peeled her hands back.

Marc ripped open Johnson's pants exposing the wound, and pressed down hard to try and stop the bleeding.

Aug-30-2015 13:16

Johnson cried out in agony. In the war, he helped many people with groin wounds. But never someone who had it almost cut completely off. Marc could feel blood still gushing in between his fingers. "Molly, I need you to get some cloth right now."

She complied and ripped some clothing off of one of the bodies in the room, and brought it back to Marc as he pulled the rest of the ambassador's pants off. Marc grabbed it with one of his bloody hands and shoved it onto the cut. Ambassador Johnson's face began turning pale.

"Damnit! He's going into shock!"

More shots filled the room as people in ther building returned fire at direction where the snipers were shooting.

"We need to get him to the hospital now, or he's going to die," Marc said looking at Molly in the eye. It was something Marc was certain she knew but he said it anyways, not caring if the ambassador could hear or not.

Another man entered the room. "I'm Jasper Mayfield, FBI." He said. Let's get him out of here. Marc helped lift him up to carry him out. He grabbed Molly's wrist and made her apply pressure. Slowly, they made their way out.

Aug-30-2015 14:12

**Before Marc's Arrival**

Molly applied pressure on Johnson's johnson and grimly reviewed the situation. She would need help to get him stabilized, but no one was around.

"Kent, we need to make our way inside. Keep pressure on this." she said seriously, starting to help him to his knees. Suddenly she heard a buzz by her ear, and squinted her eyes for a moment. It sounded like a bee. Could bees even fly this high?

Another buzz sounded, and the sleeve of her black Chanel dress tore open in a neat line. She looked askance to see a smoking round hole in the wall behind her.

"Sniper!" she cried, flattening herself to the ground. The balcony exploded an inch from her head in a shower of plaster and cement and she realized she was a sitting duck, right in the open.

"Kent, move yourself now or you will die out here." she said grimly, rolling to the corpse of his assailant. With a grunt she drew the body up in front of her as a shield and began moving towards the door, Johnson unsteadily half crawling, half dragging himself inside. The body before her twitched and shuddered as it was filled steadily with lead, but Molly grimly hung on until Johnson's heel cleared the doorway. Then she flung the body unceremoniously and disappeared into the dark office.

Just then, Marc entered through the doorway.

Aug-30-2015 20:41

Watching Joseph leave the office, Riza felt a strange compulsion to follow him. It bothered her immensely that he would not even look at her, though she had been the one who had told him to leave...

Riza hesitated for a minute, then made her choice. Doing her best to dodge the rain of gunfire by alternately running and ineloquently diving behind furniture, she managed to slip out the door unscathed. Riza hurried down the stairs and shoved through the three men blocking the entrance, deaf to whatever warnings or profanities they were yelling after her. She dashed into the library and paused. The echo of multiple sets of shoes hitting marble was audible from above.

A few minutes later, Riza found herself in front of a heavy steel door which led out onto the rooftop. There had been no sign of Joseph on the way up (though there had been other men on the fifth floor), so he had to be on the roof. Riza gently placed her ear against the door. It was too quiet on the other side. That was never a good sign. She pulled out a small pistol strapped to her inner thigh and released the safety.

Cautiously, she nudged the door open an inch. The tiny sliver opening offered her no clues, but she caught the faint scent of blood in the air. The back of her neck prickled.

Bracing herself, Riza kicked the door open and leapt into a roll. In the millisecond the world was upside down, she caught sight of Joseph backed up against the brick base of the water tower on the far end, his right collarbone bloody and a consternated gaze cast upward.

Immediately, a bullet whizzed past her right ear. She ducked and ran in a weaving pattern towards the tower, taking aim and firing at the dark figure which had ducked behind the unit above.

Aug-30-2015 20:42

For the briefest moment, Riza locked eyes with Joseph. An unspoken signal passed between them. Then she veered to the left and continued firing, trying to circle around to the other side of the tower. The dark figure continued to dodge by moving around the circumference of the unit.

The instant Joseph heard the shuffle of feet from overhead, he turned and ran backwards into the open. Raising his left hand, he fired two shots.

The sniper fell, dropping his rifle with a clatter. Riza exhaled a breath she did not realize she had been holding.

Quickly, she rushed over to the ladder. Stepping over the body of one of Ed's companions, she hauled herself up, making her way over to where the suited man lay. He was not breathing. It appeared both of the bullets had implanted themselves in the back of his head. For good measure, Riza gave the body a swift kick before jumping down to where Joseph was standing.

She looked Joseph up and down, assessing his injuries. Stepping closer to him, she saw that he was once more averting his gaze. She raised her hand as though to place it on his shoulder, causing him to look up. Suddenly, Riza's hand changed course and slapped him hard across the face.

Aug-31-2015 06:19

Joseph Zeo was perplexed. Three years ago wasn’t Riza the one who told him to leave? Wasn’t Riza the one who rammed flying daggers into the door two inches from him? He wanted to fulfill his obligations and father Riza’s child, but he was obviously not welcomed.

The stunted look without remorse on Joseph’s face set Riza off. She twisted his bleeding arm to his back, his wrist almost touching his neck. Joseph grunted. He was surprised his arm didn’t come right off. He remained silent. It was a debt he could never repay.

Upon seeing the blood drip off Joseph’s thick suit from the elbow, Riza slowly released the poor man’s arm. In two quick moves she took out his jacket and ripped the right sleeve off his shirt. She pressed the bloodied cloth on his wound much harder then she really needed to. Joseph simply took it all in.

They both knew enough from past gunshot wounds that it would take more than ten minutes to stop the bleeding, to them an eternity. Joseph was dying to ask about their child but he wouldn’t dare, so he did what he did best.

He analyzed.

“You and Molly, given your sudden appearance at Johnson’s office, I supposed you girls has been after the Ambassadors assassinations all the way from New York? Wouldn’t be just the two of you given the distance. Vulkie? Marc too?” Her silence confirmed his assumptions. “Where were you guys before coming--“

“Vulkie was pushed off the train on our way over from Istanbul.” Riza interrupted, “we took care of the culprit.” Both detectives fell silent again -- a quietness that was not serenity.

Joseph pushed at his tempos with his fingers, his lips turning white with the lost of blood. He shivered. “Vulkie is a tough girl, I’m sure she is alright…”

Aug-31-2015 06:20

Without a warning Riza tore the other sleeve off Joseph’s shirt. She ripped it into two long strips, one to dress his wound and the other fashioned into a sling to hold his arm in place, all the while restraining herself from wrapping the strips around his blasted neck. Was his skull really that thick?

Which woman would rather choose to raise a child all on her own if she had a choice? With Joseph, Riza knew all she was getting was a corpse. Joseph was still hung up on Anias, and no woman could swallow that. The fact that Joseph was asking about the group and the current case but nothing on their child had Riza concluded that he really did not care a damn about her.

Rize suffered. Those last days before delivery with cramps in her legs every night with no one to sooth them, and the late nights trying to get her daughter to fall asleep with no one else to hold the baby even when Riza was desperate to go to the toilet herself… When the little girl was finally old enough to part with Riza, which was still too young, it tore Riza’s heart out. She knew the little soul was in better hands �" someone she trusted with her dear life and no one else knew about her. The girl was safe. There was still the issues of Roy in her life too which she has yet to resolve. She knew Joseph would not fit into the picture, but still, he didn’t have to disappear altogether… What has he been up to in the past 3 years?

“So you have returned to the FBI?” Riza asked upon remember seeing him with Ed.

Joseph shook his head. “I’m working for the Shanghai Municipal Council, they needed someone ‘local’ to look after those Agents.”

So the idiot had been lurking in Shanghai for a while. Riza tied the knot at the back of the sling extra hard, wishing that knot was his neck. “You’ll need take the bullet out at the hospital, if you prefer to shoot again with your right.”

Aug-31-2015 06:21

“We better go check on Ed first. If just one sniper was that difficult to deal with, Ed would need more back up.” Zeo put his jacket back on and stumbled as he stood up. He noticed a set a steel fire escape stairway at the backside of the building next to the water tower. The sniper chose a wise location with a close-by escape route.

Zeo headed down the flight of stairs to the fifth floor, in hopes of rounding up the snipers from the other end of the building.

Aug-31-2015 08:38

Molly kept desperate pressure on Ambassador Johnson's wound as she walked between Jasper and Marc. Nose in the air, she simply chose to pretend the awkwardness and humiliation of it all wasn't happening, and she wasn't desperately clinging onto a man's nether regions to save his life.

"I need a bubble bath." She said to no one in particular. "And a strong martini."

"What you need is a bandage, lady." The agent called Jasper called, throwing her a look as she slid into the car first, Johnsons body coming in after her. They were taking the car to the hospital, with Jasper behind the wheel.

"A bandage?" Molly raised her eyebrows, and suddenly felt an odd crackling as something coating her forehead broke open and the pulsing sting on her temple she had ignored. With both hands occupied, she could only ask Marc mournfully, "How bad is it?"

Marc gave her a cursory once over. "It looks worse than it is, head wounds always are."

"I don't care if the bloody thing is hanging open Marc, I just want to know if it'll SCAAAAAAR!" she bleated pitifully, and quite undone at the constant attack today had lent on her normally high standard of beauty and dress, she burst into tears.

Neither men had any idea what to do about this, and so the short car ride was awkwardly silent except for Molly's sniffles and the occasional grunt of pain from Ambassador Johnson.

Upon reaching the hospital, they were attended to immediately- as Jasper and Marc levied Johnson out of the car, harried orderlies seemed to appear out of nowhere with a gurney and load him on. Chattering in rapid-fire Shanghaiese, they disappeared down the hall and a flinty-eyed nurse took one look at Molly and practically dragged her down a hallway by the ear, flinging a burst of words at her that didn't sound particularly kind. Positively mopey, Molly just let herself be led as if all was lost to have her wounds tended to. Jasper raised an eyebrow at her receding figure as he and Marc stood together awkwardly

Aug-31-2015 08:43

in the hall, ignoring the receptionist who was brandishing a sheaf of paperwork at them with a hopeful mix of Shanghaiese and extremely broken English.

"She's kind of a vain thing, isn't she?" Jasper inquired dubiously, sticking his hands in his pockets. Marc chuckled at this understatement of the year.

"She's a socialite, she's about those clothes and hair and makeup things I guess." he said with a shrug. By unanimous silence, the members in their odd friendship simply elected to take the peculiar woman as she was, eccentricities and all. "But she's a good girl. Heart of gold, and she's got a mean aim too."

Jasper shook his head at the utter ridiculousness of it all and the two resigned gentlemen proceeded to take a seat in the cramped waiting area.