12194/A bird in the Hand (I)

A bird in the Hand (I)
Date of Scene:	17 September 2020
Location:	Winner's Slices Pizzeria, The Bowery, Gotham
Synopsis:	Please delete
Cast of Characters:	Nightwing, Tony Zucco, Batgirl (Cain)

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Nightwing has posed:
It is crowded at the top of the detective charts. Batman, Detective Chimp, The Question, then a bit of a gap and some other names. Amongst that second tier would be the known as Nightwing. Another name might be Oracle or Batgirl. Regardless, it did not take too much of an effort for Dick Grayson to find this place. Winner's Slices is a little alley pizzeria in the Bowery, with white and red checkered tables and a high counter, and a single row of booths, no stools, with a tiny bathroom in the back and a brief, narrow street access door with a white awning over it. It's cheap fare, for single slices and calzones and soda pop, with a legendary cheeseburger. The crowd is a little on the rough and seedy side. Locals come in for a slice, but so do the street hustlers and street walkers, the pimps, and other even less desirables. It's the bowery, that isn't the palace one goes for wholesome family fun.

Nightwing is in the corner closest to the bathroom, situated at the bat top. He has a diet soda settled in front of him, and is waiting on a calzone. It's the sort of food it can take awhile to eat. He is sullen, disheveled, and looks like a local. The dark hair is tossed, but he has has shaggy, long, and fuzzy sideburns along with a van dyke that ages his face. The brown contacts hide his bay blues. His jacket is light and the young man looks just a bit rough around the edges. In other words, despite being a new face he looks a lot like he belongs. He has a faint smell to him; like he put just a tiny splash too much of a discount store cologne. Some nameless street thug turning over a hustle into a meal.

Tony Zucco has posed:
Tony Zucco has a new contract on his docket, an association of bosses in a mid-tier ring of criminals having cut a deal with a mysterious overseas backer. Sterner and Grissom, a venture capital firm, is heavily invested in a modicum of a deal, in the terms of Gotham finance. Just a sewage contract, important to city council anyways.

This contract, however, has quite a lucrative advantage, as negotiated by the city in exchange for political favor from the new contractor's national partners, and the non-monetary tangibles are off the charts. Tony could've worked the whole thing over in his sleep, but he's a street man, he does the screwdriver. He never was a boss, never had the breeding.

The sophistication, however, he has in spades.

But for now, Tony Zucco needs to visit his old friend Earl, the pizza man at Winner's Slices Pizzeria. He walks under the awning to the place, wearing a black-grey trenchcoat with a green jacket and white undershirt beneath it, green tie. His long, widow's peak hair, is swept back over his head, and his glimmering eyes with this little cheshire wrinkles around them are looking about with a slow scan over the counter. There's a grin, and Earl looks up, and Zucco pulls his hands out of his coat, and waves.

"Hey, Earl! How's my man looking?"

Nightwing has posed:
"It's all good, Tony. All good? The usual my friend?" Earl hastily starts to clean off Tony's spot at the counter. Not that it needed it. Still, the sanitized cloth gets wiped over the surfaces in a more than cursory manner. Another, dry cloth removes the residue so Tony doesn't get anything on his suit coat. Tony is a big deal, maybe the biggest deal here.

As Earl moves to get Tony's drink, the shaggy hustler at the end of the counter casually lifts his drink to his lips to take a sip. Casual motion is normal. The erstwhile vigilante eases up onto his toes against the stool's legs to lever himself up a little to look into the kitchen as if to look for his order.

Inwardly, Dick seethes. Outwardly, it is just some impatient hustler looking for his meal. The place is not busy, but calzones take a little time. That is just the way it goes.

Tony Zucco has posed:
"Just another day in the gravy boat," Tony says as he pulls up to the countertop and rests his forearms down, elbows just over the edge. A closed posture, and a sit that indicates he's taking it, but not from a prison convict. Not that it's never happened, they had to jump him into the Mafia at least once. "Everybody's got problems in this city, eh Earl?"

Tony gestures over the counter with a list of a finger and a palm-down point, finger lifted straight and just barely, at the cash register.

"The boss cutting too much off you? You're not my responsibility anymore, I'm on a different ring right now, but I could help."

Nightwing has posed:
"It's all good, Tony." Earl repeats himself, this time just a hair more nervous. Earl doesn't want trouble, obviously. "It went up a little, but nothing? unreasonable." Earl speaks so carefully. One doesn't go far in Gotham complaining too loud about protection money. "I haven't got any beef, and we're taken care of really good. You know? My money spent is well spent, you get me, my friend?" Meaning that someone had tried to get away with a little of Earl's money and Tony's boss 'intervened'.

Again, the unkept hustler leans up looking in the kitchen. Earl snaps. "I told you it takes time, son." His tone is irate and unusually sharp. But the kid is obviously a hustler. The kid lifts his hands up to show his palms. "You did, mister. Just been a couple of days. You warned me. I've got trouble enough, don't want none from you, and I ain't bringing none in. I'm cool."

Earl gives him a long look then nods, muttering something about damn kids and no patience.

Tony Zucco has posed:
Tony nods along with Earl, listening with an honestly concerned furrow of his brow. "Good, good, I like happy customers, just like you do."

As the kid gets Earl's attention, Zucco arches his chin up and looks over his shoulder, grinning with the left side of his mouth, showing his teeth. At the admonition of error, Tony nods with a bounce, and twists on the stool, shifting his leg and keeping his legs at an open posture, one knee against the bottom of the counter.

"Hey, Jocamole, what's happening. You ain't got enough to eat? I got too much time. I'm Tony, you may have heard of me, Tony Zucco? What's yer name, kid?"

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
The new patrol route took her a certain way. Seemed she wasn't the only one deviating from the path she was supposed to take tonight. She didn't remember seeing Nightwing's route showing a break for undercover at a pizzeria. It was in that same area of the map where Batman had assigned a closer line mirroring the other vigilante.

She shifted her focus, using some of those wonderful toys to monitor the conversation in the building even though there was no tap on Nightwing himself. No earpiece to give him away. She listened and watched.

A silent sentinel, lost in the darkness of the night, practically invisible as she blended with the skyline. No silhouetting herself. She had been taught these skills while most girls had been playing with baby dolls. She never had one of those, except for show. Her toys had been sharper.

Batgirl simply watched and listened.

Nightwing has posed:
"Yeah. I heard of you, and you say to go, I go." The kid responds, discomfort crossing his face. His lips curl. "I do a'right." The kid answers. "I let myself get caught up with a couple of idiots last night. Got the shit kicked out of me by?" He doesn't say the name. He isn't summoning that guy here. His brown eyes shift as he looks about as if afraid that by saying the name he'll show up. His shoulders actually tighten. "I'm Michael Keef. Mike to people who know me." His shoulders shrug. "And again, I'm not meaning any disrespect. I just lost out on last night's hustle because it went stupid."

His brown eye keep sweeping around the room, and the kid looks scared and spooked. The usual sort of routine that street kids get when the Bat shows up. He shakes his head. "So, if you say we're a'right, we're a'right. I'm good so long as I don't see him again. Ever."

Keef doesn't seem like he cares if folks think he's a coward when it comes to the Bat. There's no false bravado. He's either smart or dumb as a rock.

Tony Zucco has posed:
"Michael, eh?" Tony Zucco's eyes tilt upwards to the scared look, focusing on Keef's eyebrows, Tony's chin lifting. "That's a funny name. Every name is a funny name, you know? In Italian, they're called, benevolences."

Tony leans forward, propping his open arm on his knee, to get closer in an act of pressure posture intimidation, despite the distance, an old habit.

"Y'see, we have dozens upon dozens of names that do different things. You give a kid a certain consonance set, in a language, they eventually do something, they you find the right one. Just something you get used to, over time, something that kinda occurs. Mike, that's the first girlfriend, you don't like 'em."

"Me, I'm Anthony. That one, means I'm always testing something, by having another guy do it, for me, and you always flunk, but I help you. Tricky, eh?"

Tony leans back, raising his finger with his elbow propping on the closed arm, on the bar, closing his lean. "Watch."

He turns. "Hey, Earl, what do you think this kid's afraid of? Who's he looking for, who's the girl he's offending?" He grins, widely, unsure.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Engaging in conversation with Anthony "Tony" Zucco. Batgirl tilts her head, a tiny motion. Not something that would stand out to a normal guy on the street, if she were even visible. It's something her family has learned is her way of expressing curiosity about something.

She remains still. No movement. No motion. Nothing to draw the eye upward to the building she rests on. Her angle inside isn't the best but it is the best for concealment so it will have to do.

Nightwing has posed:
"Tony. You know It's bad luck to say it." Earl starts to protest, but he relents. Earl knows not to test Tony, or else be tested himself. He lowers his voice. "He's scared of the Bat." Earl looks around as if certain he summoned the bat. A moment passes. No Bat. A couple of thudding heartbeats, and Earl looks over at Anthony, then wrinkles his nose, inhaling. He moves back towards the kitchen to get the kitchen help scooting on that calzone and Tony's food. "Hey Tony, you want me to give the kid his pie to go?"

"I've never been one to test well. Letters and I we don't line up the same way. Dick-lexia. Or something." Keef answers. "And I'm small time, Mr. Zucco. I ain't got the skills to be doing any favors for important folks. Much as I might want to. I barely got away from the bat, and that was because I split when the other two wanted to stay and fight." He keeps his chin high there. "And anyone who met him is gonna say I was the smart one, Mr. Zucco. I ain't ly'in."

Tony Zucco has posed:
Tony's brows furrow, suddenly deadly, as Earl says that, his neck swinging as he looks back to Michael Keef. His hand tightens, on his knee, bearing his knuckles, his fingers all in a line, showing his first set with the bends, left-handed.

"Well, that's what I call a Gotham City post-cape conspiracy." Tony looks to Earl, and says, "You give him his pie to go, and you mark my order down on my tab." He stands from his stool, with a quick, jagged poise, the stool's metal legs dragging across the linoleum tile. "I lost my appetite, I think I'm going to have a smoke instead."

He raps his left knuckles on the counter, and shoves his hands back in his pockets, ducking out the door.

Outside, he waits, door slamming shut behind him, behind the long edge of the door, reaching under his shoulder for his snub-nose custom .38 revolver, "Saturday Night Special".

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Batgirl makes sure she is blended with the architecture as Zucco exits the building. Checking his weapon. She doesn't budge. Her skill is in reading people like a book, their movements giving things away they don't even realize. She can tell intentions, when someone is making a move. Able to see a tendon tense before a trigger is pulled to know to move before it is fired. So many tiny things that make her seem super human to the bad guys, another skill she uses to her advantage.

She waits and watches. To be sure his intentions are just to be sure he's prepped for the world he lives in and has no intentions toward the hustler, Keef, inside.

Nightwing has posed:
Earl looks like Tony all but hit him. He blanches then nods. "Sure thing Tony." AS he bustles in the kitchen. He is snarling mad by the time he comes out. "You dumb kid. THat isn't a guy who you piss off."

The street kid's answer is, "You pissed him off, dumbass. You don't say that name." The words shoot out of Keef's mouth. Earl drops the calzone box and 'accidentally' steps on it. "Sorry 'bout that. No refunds." Earl smears which earns his a bloody nose and a busted lip.

"Keep the change." Keef snarls back. The kid picks up the pie and moves towards the door. With practiced ease his eyes sweep out the window and more importantly across the street at the darkened window and the reflection there. His pace is the swaggering pace of the street kid who just pancaked someone.

Tony Zucco has posed:
As the door opens from the inside, Tony's hand catches the handle and he performs a side swing with a juke, to pull on alongside it.

There's a little, tiny, "Hey buddy," a soft little thief's greeting, to get Michael Keef to turn to face him.

Just then, Tony rounds the door and comes out, gun in hand, attempting to push Michael up against the wall, and jam the revolver's stubby butt against his jaw, upwards, into the brain.

Just for a little Q&A, you know. Tony doesn't spot many men who dated the Batman as their first gal.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
That has her attention. But she isn't moving. Batgirl waits. She knows that Nightwing can handle himself well. But if this gets ugly, she's ready to act.

She waits. A batarang is slipped silently into her hand.