The Lost City of Anterram

[Spectre of the Fade]

[fieldbox=Malcolm, #800000, dotted, 12, book antiqua]9:45 PM, local time
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
The club was active at this time of night. That club being some expensive joint popular with the tourists, of course. The decor was fashionable and modern in gorgeous purples and shiny silver, the light show was every bit as entrancing as the music, and the drinks were supposedly phenomenal, and the bouncer was actually choosy about who gained entry. It was a damn high class place to be.

But Malcolm? Malcolm didn't really give a shit about all that. Too many people, too much noise, too many risks. Drugs or even a decent drink were out if the question; he was working, dammit. Couldn't even have a smoke, as he'd been trying to quit; the doctor describing his lungs as a tar pit when he first joined up with Eclipse was scary enough to get him off the habit.

And he sure as fuck didn't dance.

So he stood, quietly, by himself, in a corner with a very virgin soda with grenadine and a fantastic view of both the entrance and the hallway leading to the restrooms and the door leading to the alley out back. His resting bitchface kept most of the idiots from encroaching on his personal space, but couldn't scare off the pounding bass that he traditionally enjoyed but really only pissed him off in a setting like this. It made him antsy, more on edge than usual. Made him want to work out, or fight something.

It was a damn good thing he had good self control.

Despite the fact he was useless at a place like this, Malcolm had dressed as if he was just another idiot in the crowd, all expensive clothes and flashy jewelry. Ass he may be, but he could blend into a crowd. The shirt was a deep blue button-up, probably silk, that was unbuttoned just enough to reveal a little reddish chest hair without being distasteful, its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Fashionable jeans, colored black. Shoes in a matching black that just had to be real leather. And, finally, a classy watch and a silver chain dangling around his neck rounded off the look. Malcolm would have preferred a real suit to flash the wealth killing people for a living tended to bring, but looking like he just got off work at a law firm was not how to blend in at this club.

Taking a drink of the soda in his hand, Malcolm leaned his back up against the bar and cast an eye around the club's populace. There was so much to pay attention to, from the dancers on the floor to the people milling about the bar to the idiots outside waiting in line for entrance. Hard to watch for threats or his supplier in a place like this. Ah, Matthew always brought him to the most...entertaining places. Meaning, he's pretty sure he would punch Matthew in the face for making come to a shithole like this and all the others like it if the man wasn't so damn useful to him. That didn't keep him from threatening to do so, however, and he might just do so if the bastard would ever show his face.

He wasn't pointlessly impatient. Or, at least, he had some semblance of reason he wanted to see the smuggler as soon as possible. It wasn't just supplies he wanted to talk about with Matthew, after all, as Eclipse needed a reliable supplier for some job they had planned and Matthew, while possessing certain quirks, fit their needs well enough. He didn't bother wondering what they needed an arms and transport supplier for; he wasn't paid to be curious. He was paid to find things, kill things, and occasionally protect things, and he was damn good at all of the previous.

Ten more minutes of bass and stress later, Malcolm was done. Done with the noise, done with the people, done with struggling to pay attention to every member of the crowd surrounding him. After draining the half finished soda, he began pushing his way through the people, aiming for the back door and some fucking cold air.[/fieldbox]​

 

[Kazama]

"High quality, huh?"

Matthew Bailey smiled a wide, charismatic smile, "The best quality stuff I've got, Mr. Aguilas. I'm almost hesitant to sell them, but for you? Only the best."

The small warehouse in the alleyway behind the club was a nice place for business. A few personal "friends" owned the nearby club, and authorities around here were kept nice and lazy by a well-adhered schedule of bribery. The warehouse was empty save for a cargo truck loaded with several crates. A few of them had been unloaded and lay around, some open, some closed. Most of them contained firearms, though a few were filled with explosives or body armor.

Bailey placed his hand down on an open crate labeled in both Chinese and Russian. Inside, several Kalashnikov rifles lay on straw bedding while his client, Carlos Aguilas, examined one in his hands. Aguilas was a representative of Las Garras, one of Mexico's biggest crime syndicates. Aguilas pulled the bolt on the gun back before he decided he was satisfied. Las Garras were currently at war with a rival syndicate. A turf war that Mr. Matthew Bailey found incredibly profitable. He brought his hands together and rubbed them,

"So," He looked at Aguilas, then to the Garras bodyguards standing behind him, and back to Aguilas, "We feelin' happy?"

Aguilas nodded and placed the gun back in the crate, "Yeah. We feelin' happy," he nodded at the Garras bodyguards standing behind him, "Load it up. And bring the cash."

A metal briefcase exchanged hands until it reached Matthew's. He opened it with a click, took one of the many stacks of money out of it, and ran his thumb along the side of it, each individual bill shuffling against the other like a deck of cards. He smiled again, placing that particular roll into the pocket of his silk suit jacket, "Always a pleasure."

Less than an hour later, he was shouting, "Another round, on me!" for the third time inside one of the VIP rooms within the nearby club. The weight of money in his suit jacket's pocket was an incredibly effective confidence booster, and with any luck, this particular feast of his feast or famine lifestyle would last longer than usual. The first two buttons on his white shirt were unbuttoned and he raised a glass of bourbon before downing it. The fact that he had to meet another client pretty soon was buried quite deeply in his mind, at least until he checked his watch. He looked up from his drink and mumbled something along the lines of, "Oh shit, that Eclipse guy." before tossing several bills onto the bartender's table and trying to keep his drink from spilling as he waded through the crowd. A few people patted him on the back or cheered at him as he passed; buying rounds for the room tends to make you popular; but he just nodded and smiled wordlessly as he tried to push his way past.

He looked around for Malcolm, but found no trace of him in the club. After asking a bartender who, as usual, had needed a little bit of money to jog his memory, he headed outside. He found the sullen looking man standing alone on the sidewalk. Looking pissed off about something, but from Matthew's experience it could be anything from a bad plane ride to a seagull that looked at him funny. The ice cubes in his glass clinked around a bit as he walked towards him.

"Malcolm Hayes. You know the club's inside the building, right?"

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

[fieldbox=Malcolm, #800000, dotted, 12, book antiqua]"Does it ever occur to you that I know at least four ways to hide your body before you make those smart remarks?" Malcolm asked, arms crossing across his chest as he turned to face Matthew. It wasn't easy to tell that he was merely joking, what with his moderately irritated expression and the lack of tone in his accented voice and his near permanent intimidating posture, but he was. Murdering a good supplier was an idiotic move of epic proportions and Malcolm would be damned before he did something so stupid. And he could actually tolerate Matthew, despite the shitholes the man always dragged Malcolm to for meetings and his tendency to be late or forgetful and Matthew's generally obnoxious personality.

People Malcolm knew through work didn't sass him often; he tended to respect the ones who did.

"You stink like alcohol," he remarked dryly after giving Matthew a once-over, checking for obvious weapons and signs of professionalism. He saw neither. Regardless, he went straight to business. There was no point in idle chatter, not when there was profit to be made. "I'm not in need of much, this time, but I do need it quickly. Guns. Transportation, preferably a Jeep or something with four wheel drive. Explosives, if you can get a hold of those in the next day or two, but they're only party favors. It'll be the usual rate, with a sizable bonus if you can get the items to me fast enough." He paused for a moment, considering how to word the job offer. The truth was that Eclipse had asked him to select a supplier for the expedition, and he had chosen Matthew without input from the company because he was decently reliable and not terrible to be around. However, saying that sounded soft and made it seem like they were friends or some shot. So, a stretch of the truth, then. "My employers requested I give you a job offer as well, if you're interested in temporary work with us." That worked well enough and it was no outright lie.[/fieldbox]