2020-09-01 - A Nosebleed's Worth of Nothing

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : Is this Ravn Abildgaard?

(TXT to Ruiz) Ravn : Depends on who's in the other end. If you're a reporter for Expressen, go fuck yourself sideways with a frying pan.

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : A reporter? That's a new one. no, I'm not a reporter. And fucking myself sideways with a frying pan doesn't sound like my idea of a good time, so I'll pass on that too, thanks.

(TXT to Ruiz) Ravn : Not a reporter. Then yes, Ravn Abildgaard here, and sorry about the attitude. Who's this?

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : Javier de la Vega. Vic Grey told me you had some evidence I might want to see.

(TXT to Ruiz) Ravn : ... Great. I'm great at first impressions. Yes, I do, assuming she meant the tripod and the camera lens. They're on my boat. Do you want me to bring them in?

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : We've met before. Doesn't quite qualify as a first impression, yeah?

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : And let's keep this off the record for now. There's no case yet, they aren't evidence. I just want to take a look. Where can we meet?

(TXT to Ruiz) Ravn : You and Cavanaugh are friends, right? My boat's two spaces down from his. Could always just go check on your sailor friend who, I think, isn't home at the moment.

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : Friends? We're not friends. He's

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : (a few dots)

(TXT to Ruiz) Ravn : A convenient excuse at the moment?

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : What?

(TXT to Ruiz) Ravn : For visiting the pier.

(TXT to Ravn) Ruiz : It's none of your business what we are. I'll be down in fifteen.

(TXT to Ruiz) Ravn : It really isn't. I'll get things ready.

The Vagabond is not a large boat though she can berth four people comfortably -- six if some of them are on very friendly terms. She is in fact moored exactly where Ravn said she would be -- a couple of spaces closer to land than Joe Cavanaugh's Surprise. And the tall, copper blond Dane is sitting on the open deck in her aft, quite visible from the pier. A small black cat sits across from him, having claimed one of the four seats available and napping with all four paws sticking up in the air, undisturbed by life. It's the kind of scene that breathes idyll and happiness and a risk of seagulls stealing your hot dog if you're not careful. A happy, tranquil scene that doesn't really fit this town at all.

That perfectly idyllic scene is disrupted by the growl of an engine, up on the boardwalk. Eight thirsty cylinders housed in a menacing brute of an unmarked cruiser that comes gliding to a halt in one of the spaces directly overlooking the pier.

Half a minute later, the familiar shape of the police captain emerges along the pier, dressed in tee shirt and jeans and battered converse, a pair of aviators slid over his eyes. He scans along the row of moored boats, hesitates on the Surprise, and hops across onto the Vagabond. The cat gains a suspicious look, as of an old dog to a small feline of unknown temperament. To Ravn, after a beat, "Buenas tardes, sorry for the intrusion." It's a little gruff, but appears sincere.

"No intrusion at all, Captain. As I understand it, I'm the one who should be thanking you for taking out time -- am I allowed to offer you a beer?" The Dane gets up and seems to hesitate for a moment as if trying to decide what exactly the protocol is here, for shaking hands or indeed, not shaking hands, and so on.

Sporting the same black boots, jeans and t-shirt combined with black gloves look that he does when working at the Two if By Sea, he still gives off that impression that on some level, he should be in Seattle, trying to rub elbows with the other Steve Jobs fan boys at some fancy coffee shop -- not standing here, next to a cat that very clearly gives not a single flying fig about someone else coming on board. Not as much as an ear twitch. Ravn, on the other hand, seems a tad less sure of himself than he usually does at the bar -- probably not too uncommon in people who are not used to dealing with police authorities.

To be fair, de la Vega isn't just any cop, either. He's the newly minted (acting) Chief of Police, and rumoured to have a nasty little temper, to boot. "So long as it's not piss water," is his answer to Ravn's question. Nothing tongue in cheek about it; he seems dead serious, and peruses the younger man's face for a moment or two before glancing back to the sleeping cat, then away as he takes stock of the boat. Probably he's not thinking about handshakes and protocol, but probably those aren't his strong points either.

"Why do you wear those gloves?" he asks, apropos of nothing, while squinting off toward the boardwalk. Checking sightlines, perhaps, as he's wont to do.

Ravn dives in through the door that leads to the (not very) lower deck, leaving it open so that the other man can hear him, and indeed, see where he went. There's a miniature kitchen in there which includes, among other things, a fridge. "I've got Heineken and some local IPA that I have no idea what's like but the label looked interesting. How brave are we feeling?" Then he glances back at the (definitely not acting, don't be silly) Chief of Police. "I've got a disorder -- touching things without some kind of protective layer is highly uncomfortable. Feels a bit like how I imagine it feels to stick your fingers into an electrical outlet at times."

There's a small table -- or dais, rather -- occupying the centre of the space below deck, surrounded by an U-shape of seating space that can quickly be converted to a sleeping area. Upon that dais lies a photographer's tripod and a couple of bits of other hardware.

"IPA is the fucking epitome of piss water," opines the cop in a low murmur, tonguetip run along a canine as he offers this tidbit, and a slight shift of his footing as he comes to the edge of the boat to peer at something on the shore. The cat's darted another brief glance, but it's still blessedly asleep, and thus left alone. Pushing off, he prowls closer to the mouth of the doorway into which Ravn vanished, and looks down. Nosy fellow, this one. Probably comes of being a cop, and having done some time doing detective work. Even if it's well below his paygrade, these days.

A chuckle when electrical outlets are mentioned. "I don't know, you might be surprised." And then he keeps moving, while he waits for this mythical non-piss beer to show up.

"Heineken it is." Ravn procures two bottles from the fridge and offers one over. "Come on in -- roomy it ain't, but I've almost got the smell of pot out of the cushions. Previous owner seems to have had a very interesting social life at times."

The Dane glances at the tripod, the lens cap and the destroyed telelens. "Vic said you might be interested in these because -- well. If it's some jackass wanting to take pictures of me because of this whole ridiculous Swedish Chef thing, then it's not a big deal -- pain in the backside to me, but, you know, not the end of the world. But there's also the Russian spy thing which may be a whole bloody lot more serious if some agency or other actually thinks that Cavanaugh is an agent of a foreign power."

Heineken? De la Vega looks dubious, but climbs down belowdecks, once the invite's given. He ducks his head to keep from thumping it on the low ceiling, despite the fact that he's well below six feet and likely stands no chance of any such thing. Then reaches for the offered beer, turns it around briefly in his palm to inspect it before popping the cap with his thumb and taking a swig. His expression says that it probably could be worse.

The tripod, then, is regarded with some interest as he meanders closer. "Has that actually been a, uh.. a thing?" He gestures with the bottle, to the younger man. "People wanting to take pictures of you. Thinking you're a Swedish chef." He did, for a hot minute there, to be fair. "And I'll put some feelers out, see if the FBI or CIA's caught wind of this nonsense. Though they might not be willing to tell the likes of me, if they have."

"I don't know the first thing about policework," Ravn admits, uncapping his own bottle. "Everything I do know, I get from Hollywood. Don't imagine it to be all too accurate -- for one, you're not sitting behind a desk threatening to take someone's badge away. But yes -- I'm apparently this month's flavour of what passes for a celebrity around here. And it's bloody annoying, but it's not a problem. Vic was worried about Cavanaugh and the spy thing, and I got to agree, that'd be a hell of a lot more serious."

He settles on the seattee and looks at the tripod and the ruined lens. "This actually happened a few days ago. Rosencrantz did -- you know, some of that moving he stuff he does, and the guy dropped his lens. Vic figured we should pick up the pieces -- and, knowing Vic even as little as I do, I bet she hoped we could pick up the bloke, too. She figured someone might do the -- reading thing, maybe." It's painfully obvious that Ravn is still not quite used to the local terminology for the strange things that some people in Gray Harbor do -- with a hefty dose of good lord, I'm telling a police officer about magic added in for good measure.

There's a chuckle from the cop when sitting behind a desk threatening to take someone's badge away is mentioned, and he ticks his eyes up and over to the Dane, and rakes them over the other man slowly. Down, then up, like he's trying to ascertain something about him. Then a swig of his beer, and he ambles on in closer to the tripod and lens heaped atop the table. And though Ravn's Gift is not for touching minds, he may get the first inklings of it from the captain. The slightest scent of it, like the beginnings of an electrical fire. Like a current seeking the shortest path through superconductive material; a bitterness like ozone or something about to burn.

He touches it, one arm of the tripod. Fingers inked up to the first knuckles. Old, ugly ink; this wasn't done for vanity, and it hasn't been touched up since. "The guy," he murmurs. "You saw him?"

Anywhere else in the western hemisphere that Ravn has travelled, busked, and hustled his way through, that kind of stare might be interpreted in a myriad of ways, some more exciting than others. Here, though -- three weeks in Gray Harbor and the newcomer is already growing entirely accustomed to long investigative stares, speculative looks and sometimes, sensations like small electrical currents washing over him. It's just the native way of saying hello, and he suspects that in another month, he'll be doing the same thing (once he figures out what to look for). They're like cats, they sniff new things.

He shakes his head. "I was telling Rosencrantz how there's the occasional guy with a camera around. We were sitting on the deck, talking about violins and other things, as you do. And he kind of -- tapped out a little rythm on his knee, and the bloke up there dropped his camera and swore quite a bit about it as he ran off. I didn't even know he was there until he started yelling. Rosencrantz has an amazing sense of spatial awareness. My awareness, if you can call it that, goes pretty much from one end of this boat to the other, if I leave the door open."

Talking about violins. That gains a glance, too, though this one has a slightly different tenor to it. Particularly when Rosencrantz is mentioned. The word can't adequately be called jealousy, because de la Vega doesn't quite seem the sort of man for that. But he does seem intrigued, perhaps. "Mm," appears to represent the sum of his thinking on that matter, for the time being.

Then one more swig from the bottle of beer before it's set aside, and he gets to work. A crack of knuckles, and he starts exploring the tripod with his hands. Slowly, and oddly gently, for a man who doesn't look overly capable of such in general. Where his fingers rove, traceries of smoke and ash ablated from his mind's eye impression of the thing. Who's held it, where they've been. Where they might be now. When it's done, he makes an unhappy-sounding noise in his throat, and dabs at his nose with his knuckles. They come away with a touch of blood.

There is at least a violin case sitting on what passes for a kitchen table in the boat's small kitchen; that part, at least, is true -- black velvet the kind that has been carried around often, the shape of the arm carrying it visible in the wear of the fabric. The glance, and the significance of it, may pass the Dane by, but the blood on the other man's knuckles does not. He moves the kitchen roll to the table and murmurs, "Are you all right? I'm not quite sure this is worthy of a nose bleed."

His nose is dabbed at a couple more times, unthinkingly. And then the roll of paper towels is spotted somewhere in the midst of his fugue, and a sheet torn off, crumpled up, and used to swipe at his knuckles and nose. "Estoy bien," he murmurs, barely audible, still watching the tripod. "Happens every time." A brief hunt for the garbage, and then the balled-up paper towel is pitched into it, and he blows out a breath. "Guy wanted a picture of the two of you. He's sleeping right now." A pause, and then he reaches for his bottle of beer. "It's nice for him to have someone to play violin with. He, uh. He tries to tell me about that shit, but I don't really.." He sends Ravn a helpless look.

"Like he's lecturing you in Greek? At least that's what my fiancee used to say when I tried to tell her about music." Ravn offers a small smile, one that hints that it's not the first time somebody may have suggested that if you get musicians talking about music you better have brought a good book. "I'm not -- Rosencrantz is a performer. A real musician. I just play for my own fun but yes -- it's nice to meet someone who does indeed speak the language."

He glances down at the tripod and nods. "So I'm right and Vic is wrong for once. This was just some asshole deciding to get a few good pictures and make up some idiotic story about them. I'm glad. Like I said -- I don't know the first thing about policework but the idea of having the CIA breathing down somebody's neck doesn't sound very appealing. Sorry about the nosebleed, though. She didn't say anything about that."

The cop furrows his brows at that. "Lecturing?" He downs another swig of beer. "I wouldn't call it that. It's just something he's.. he likes a lot." And the captain, apparently, doesn't. He smiles though, fleetingly, when Itzhak being a musician is mentioned. "I don't know if you've heard him perform, but he's pretty talented. Gets up on stage and.. well, you know how some people can command a crowd?" And here he is, gushing about his boyfriend unasked. He clears his throat, checks his watch, and takes a step back toward the little ladder that heads back abovedecks. "You, uh, need anything else?" Of Vic, and whether she's right or wrong, he apparently opts not to weigh in.

"Yeah. I'm not one of those people, either." Ravn looks back at the tripod and the lens cap, and indeed, the ruined lens. "I guess it'd be all right for me to get rid of these? Don't think the owner's going to come ask for them. And -- you know. Thanks. I figure you got enough on your plate as is so thanks for taking the time. Think I'm pretty good for now, though -- and I'll be sure to not punch any photographers in the face while there are witnesses."

Does he think he's funny? He probably does.

"Probably best if you don't," agrees de la Vega, somewhat drily. He doesn't laugh, but nor does he appear particularly scandalised. So there's that. "Thanks for the beer," he thinks to add, hoisting it up. Then, "Cuidate," murmured before he replaces his aviators, clambers back on up the ladder, and lets himself off the boat. Not the most sociable fellow, the captain.