Chapter I: You've Got Mail

Private Eye Harlin Melbourne is hired to find a missing child. But when it looks to be bigger than he ever imagined, he is forced to ask Angelo Elliot.

“So run me through what happened again?” Harlin said, his head in his hand.

His mostly full glass stood on the bar in front of him, completely forgotten.

“This guy comes in, hands me this broken piece of junk and asks me my price. I tell him I couldn't sell it on if I tried, so he'd be better off selling that s**t to a scrapyard. So he gets angry,” Angelo replied, a bottle of beer hovering millimetres from his lips. “What about this is complicated?”

“It's not. I just wonder how you manage to piss off these people so easily and with such regularity.”

“It's a talent.”

Harlin could only sigh at the blasé attitude of his companion.

“What?” Angelo asked, his Brooklyn drawl echoing back in the largely empty bar. “I was just telling it to him straight.”

“And how many insults did telling it to him straight contain this time?”

Without skipping a beat, Angelo said, “Eh, I'm averaging about three.”

“This is why I should really start charging you like other clients. You have issues I never get from anyone else.”

“This s**t again?”

“One, you keep coming back. Two, you insist on making your own damn problems. Why would you do that?”

There was a short silence as Harlin studied the younger man.

“Hey, could be worse,” Angelo said with a shrug.

“How?!”

“My personal best is five.”

“Jesus, it's like I'm not even here at all.”

“Hey, don't get like that. My mouth just runs away with me, you should know this by now.”

Harlin could only sigh and cast his deep blue eyes skywards. Angelo's glare was magnified by his glasses as he watched his companion's, now familiar, performance.

“Hey, I just need to crash at the office for the night. No need to get so goddamn upset about it,” he said.

Running his hand through the dark strands of his hair, Harlin said, “I know, I know. You just keep doing this, and there'll be that one day when the guy catches up to you. What happens then?”

Angelo shrugged.

“I'll just figure that out when I get to it, won't I? So can I stay over until this blows over?”

Harlin considered refusing. Looking into the mirror behind the bar, he knew the answer before he even started to ponder it; he could never look at that skinny figure without being reminded of just how young he was. Harlin tried to remember what he'd been like as a nineteen-year-old; all he got was a fuzzy image of a pampered, oh-so-naive teenager. It certainly wasn't someone that he would trust to be safe on the streets of London at night; Angelo might be different, but why take that chance?

“Sure. Who knows what trouble a bratty kid like you will get into by yourself,” he said, after a long pause.

The New Yorker frowned.

“Hey, who are you calling a kid?”

“Alright, fine,” Harlin said, pulling a half-empty cigarette pack from his jacket. “I forget sometimes.”

“You heading out already?”

“Yeah, couple of smokes then home for me. I can't see the bar getting any more exciting than it is already.”

“That's because you turn up early. Who in their right mind bar hops at 9pm?”

“Look, are you coming with or not? I was under the impression that you needed a place to stay.”

“Sure, sure. Just give me a minute.”

Harlin stood by the door, hand poised to pull it open, and waited for Angelo to finish his beer. While he waited, a little envelope appeared in the corner of his augmented reality display, accompanied by the familiar itching around the chip in the base of his skull. He sighed.

“Christ. It never stops.”

“What's up?” Angelo asked, suddenly at his side.

“Email. Probably work stuff.”

“It's your fault for being one of these honest businessmen types. At least you have money coming in.”

Harlin shrugged, a lit cigarette already in his mouth. Taking a deep drag of it, he gestured at the icon, the email materialising in the air in front of him. Through the translucent background he could see the neon lights of the bars opposite beginning to flicker into life. He frowned as he continued reading.

“Bad news?” Angelo asked.

“Missing person case. Seems to be a kid.”

“Christ. Must be a tough thing for the parents.”

“No kidding. Looks like the mother wants to come in tomorrow to see me.”

“Want me gone by the time she gets here?”

“So long as you don't let your mouth run away with you, you should be okay to stay. Says here she should be at the office pretty early anyway,” Harlin said, closing the message down. “Allons-y.”

Harlin's office-cum-apartment always reminded Angelo of those private eye agencies in Film Noir that only ever seemed to be half lit. Part of him suspected that Harlin deliberately cultivated associations like that; it would certainly explain his penchant for 1950s-style American suits. This wasn't to say that he didn't pull off the look; on the contrary, it suited him very well, it just made him stand out like a sore thumb on the streets of London in a very different century.

“Flick the lights on would you?” Harlin said, interrupting his train of thought.

The office didn't look all that great in the light: plain wooden floorboards, wooden slat blinds, an old computer terminal sat in the far corner and a large beaten-up desk. It was no more impressive-looking than when Angelo had first gone there, but he couldn't help but feel safer when he heard the latch click shut behind them.

Throwing his coat over his desk chair, Harlin said, “Make yourself at home, I need to set up the sofa bed.”

“Yeah, I know the routine by now.”

“Please don't remind me.”

Angelo couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt hearing that. He knew he shouldn't keep getting in trouble, but he couldn't seem to shut up sometimes. Even if the people he was aggravating were those gang members with way too much cybertech and short fuses; now that he thought about it, that was, unfortunately, almost his entire clientèle.

“Sometimes I consider changing my line of work,” he said.

As soon as he said it, Angelo felt the other man go completely still.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, pouring himself a drink.

Until he had said it, he hadn't really thought about it all that much; now that it was out in the open though, he realised that he couldn't really find a good way of denying it, even to himself. He had moved to London to make something of himself, so how could he be contented with a career that forced him out of his own home on a regular basis? But then the thought of taking something apart, re-purposing the useful parts and selling on the results, all without the knowledge of the police, was just so sweet in his mind that he knew that stopping would be impossible.

“On the other hand, I like what I do,” he continued, leaning against the desk. “It's the only thing I've ever been good at.”

“Oh I don't know. I think you play the part of nurse rather well,” Harlin replied, coming up behind him, tie now loosened.

Angelo snorted.

“Hey, handing out painkillers and ice packs is hardly rocket science. Certainly doesn't make me cut out for nursing. Besides, you're hardly the rowdiest patient,” he said, grinning.

The older man laughed bitterly.

“The day I see anyone hung-over getting rowdy will be the day pigs fly.”

Angelo squirmed; he was never sure quite what to do in situations like this. His immediate reaction was to try and defend Harlin from himself, but he could never bring himself to do it because, if he was honest, the accusation wasn't inaccurate. Angelo's first real contact with him had been passed out drunk behind the bar, long after everyone else had left. It hadn't felt right to just leave him there to eventually stagger home unarmed and probably still drunk, so they had both ended up at Angelo's derelict shell of a house. Harlin seemed intent on constantly repaying that favour.

Realising that there had been an awkward pause growing between them, Angelo said, “Anyway, still not my ideal career change, if you get my drift.”

“Fine, I get it. Whatever you decide to do, I'm always ready and willing to help,” Harlin replied.

Glancing at his watch, Angelo said, “Hey, I thought you said you had stuff to do in the morning.”

“Yeah, I know. The bed's ready for you whenever you want to head off.”

“Let me guess, you're going to sleep at your desk?”

“Well done. I assume you're going to force me to share the bed?”

“Don't I always?” Angelo said, winking. “Come on, no time like the present.” 

Author's Note

I guess I'm primarily concerned with whether this manages to get the basics of setting and character across okay. Other critiques would be great.

Reviews

[VanillaBean]

Wow. Loved it. Brilliant first chapter Nisa.
I even ended up reading Angelo's dialogue in a Brooklyn accent. I can't wait for more chapters to come!

[Nisa]

Thanks a lot. I've been trying to develop Angelo for a long time now, so it's nice that he turned out so well.

[VanillaBean]

He turned out perfect :)
Love the characters so much and it takes a lot for me to really like characters aha