A Few Sandwiches Short
By Lone Wolf
I. The Old Man and the Siege
At precisely 4:06PM on a sweltering Friday afternoon, Public Enemy Number One had a mid-life crisis.
It came upon him much like a case of spontaneous combustion: rather suddenly, inexplicable, and not very convenient in the grand scheme of things. After all, he had become quite accustomed to the plush lifestyle that came from lying, cheating, murder and theft and was quite comfortable right where he was, thank you very much. In retrospect, why he had ever sought to find his lost years was completely beyond him, despite the blaringly obvious answer being the state of extreme inebriation he sometimes lolled in when the sun was past the yard-arm. Like most gentlemen of his age and position, he was not averse to the occasional liquid lunch. And, like most mid-life crises, Giovanni Lazzaro’s was brought screaming into the world by three glasses of scotch on the rocks - and a tequila chaser.
It was with some sense of bravado, then, that Team Rocket’s most nefarious member decided to quit while he was ahead. Or, his addled head amended, die trying. At the time it seemed perfectly reasonable that he should go out with a bang, considering he had lived fast, failed to die young and was possibly past leaving a good-looking corpse. It was in this frame of mind - chock full of Dutch courage, if you will - that he took a substantial amount of money from the company safe, loaded the magazines in all three of his personal firearms and bade his secretary farewell.
“Are you leaving early?” she asked, eyes glued to the computer screen, the question punctuated by the sound of her acrylic nails as she typed. She was bottle-blonde and matronly, the kind of woman who wore clothes akin to tea cosies without shame. For nine years she had made him coffee that closely resembled and tasted like effluent.
“Yes,” he replied, empowered with a strange, giddy joy.
“You have a six o’clock appointment,” she chided, “this will be the third time you’ve cancelled the meeting with the people from cryogenics.”
“Put them on ice,” he chuckled at his own joke, “Someone will see to them eventually.”
His secretary peered at him over her horn-rimmed spectacles. “You’re drunk again.”
“Maybe,” he said, winking roguishly, an altogether inappropriate gesture in her opinion. Her plucked-and-painted brows knitted in distaste; she chewed the inside of her cheek and made a very motherly tutting noise.
“If you don’t want to go that badly, I’ll cancel it for you,” she said.
“See to it,” he replied, and shut the door. His step was light, his mood buoyant - after all, here was a man who had everything: an expensive European car, two million dollars in his briefcase and the sex appeal only a 41-year-old wanted criminal in an Armani suit can exude - so he could be forgiven for humming Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head as he rode alone in the elevator to the underground carpark.
*
Somewhere, on a golf course in another city, a caddy named Sergei Hansford shuddered involuntarily.
He glanced over his shoulder and frowned, pausing in his step for a moment. He was a handsome man, albeit a very thin one; blessed with a head full of thick brown hair and a strong profile, a set of slightly crooked but white teeth and a pair of eyebrows that seemed to be completely sentient. He moved with a fluid ease, a cocky saunter that law enforcement types always watched with intense scrutiny, a loose-limbed gait that served only to accentuate the complete lack of any meat on his bones. For years he had seemed to attract the kind of woman that wanted nothing more than to feed him and fatten him up.
“May I recommend a three-iron for this shot, sir,” he said absentmindedly to the CEO of a large insurance firm who had been determinedly hacking at the ball with a pitching wedge.
“Nonsense,” replied the CEO, whose name was Cargill, and managed to send a substantial divot flying towards the eleventh hole. Sergei raised an eyebow and chased after the piece of turf, dismissing the shiver, not recalling it until quite some time later when it would make a lot of sense.
*
For Daniel Mackie, things had been going very well all afternoon. As both head of the Accounting Department and a man not renowned for his remarkable charismatic personality or public speaking skills, he had achieved what none of his forerunners could: he had managed to organise a party of malcontents to overthrow the leader of Team Rocket in what was supposed to be an extremely bloody coup.
This was a feat in itself, an act akin to herding cats; though dissent was rife within the ranks of the syndicate, every single unhappy criminal had their own idea of what would be the appropriate treatment their former boss would receive. More often than not, the argument would get the better of them and the group would disband, no one willing enough to negotiate a mutually beneficial outcome between those who wanted to disembowel and those who wanted to castrate. In the end, Daniel had stepped in, and with the level-headed reasoning only an evil accountant lacking in moral fibre could accomplish, informed the parties that both disembowelment and castration were possible.
The plan had been simple: dispose of those who objected to an administrative reshuffle, kill the Boss in as many different and increasingly creative ways as feasible and dump his mutilated body in an unmarked grave. Or at least, it might have been simple, had the man who was supposed to be languishing in fuzzy contentment not up and disappeared at the very last moment. As it happened, Giovanni’s was most certainly a well-timed mid-life crisis, escaping emasculation (among other things) by a matter of minutes. There was a kind of awe amongst the Team Rocket members for the former leader and what some perceived as his apparently exceptional psychic powers.
Whilst inconvenient in the long run, Giovanni’s disappearance had assured one thing: Daniel Mackie’s substantial promotion from Head of Accounting to Head of the World’s Largest Criminal Empire. This was perhaps the reason he whistled tunelessly and walked with an uncharacteristic bounce in his step, admiring his new office and the brass nameplate that had appeared on the door with frightening immediacy. His party of mutineers were a little upset at the lack of violence perpetrated in the takeover; disappointment that was easily quelled with his assurances that, yes, there would be plenty of blood and castration later on. He was a little uneasy, however; his brain had already begun ticking over the most efficient and cost-effective ways in which to apprehend his former boss, of which there were not many. It was in this vaguely panicked state that a fellow insurgent found him.
“What is the problem?” Daniel asked, composing himself; he had a painfully formal way of speaking, slowly and very matter-of-fact. He thought it imperative that, despite the minor hitch, he displayed an immaculate and calm facade for his underlings. Underlings. Yes, he liked the sound of that. He swivelled around in the leather chair and steepled his fingers, criminal-mastermind style.
The other man looked antsy; Daniel recognised him from the Accounting Department and thusly took his nervousness very seriously.
“Two million dollars are missing from the company safe, sir,” the man, whose name Daniel could not and had no desire to remember, said, doing an anxious little dance on the spot.
Daniel’s eyebrows quirked a little, and he ran his hand thoughtfully through his blond hair. He was not a bad looking man, though perhaps a little nondescript: deep-set grey eyes, an aquiline nose, a rigid buzz-cut and an average everything else. His suit, though second hand, was pressed, starched and otherwise immaculate; his fingernails buffed as much as his no-name brand shoes. Regardless of his abject poverty, he had the practised, haughty air of a bank manager.
“Taking into account our expansion loans with offshore banks and poor performance this year, that makes our budget defecit five and a half million dollars, yes?” he asked, rocking back and forth on the swivel chair, to which he had taken quite a liking.
“Somewhere in that region, sir.”
Daniel bit his lip and found himself overcome by an intense dislike of his former boss. Being objectionable, stubborn and stingy with paychecks was one thing, but embezzling money from a company - benevolent or otherwise - went against every single one of his frugal accountant sensibilities.
“Then we have no choice but to chase him down and retrieve our earnings,” he said, “and if possible, more. Our priorities have suddenly shifted. It seems the apprehension of Mister Lazzaro has become a more pressing matter.”
The other man bobbed in what was half-nod, half-bow and exited the room. Daniel massaged his temples for a moment or two; spun around in the swivel chair a couple of times and cursed his predecessor’s extreme good fortune.
*
Well, it's certainly been a long time since I was here last, let alone written Pokémon fic. Some people might remember me (or the gratuitously graphic fic Disconnected from a while back) but being wholly unmemorable, most probably won't. At any rate, I'm back with another piece of destined-to-be-unfinished, violent, grisly fanfiction for y'all. As what will hopefully be a rollercoaster ride into the subterranean drug and crime culture of Kanto (or just a meandering, bloody fic), I guess there may be moments when it's, oh, PG-13? Anyway I hope you enjoyed. I'm a little rusty.
EDIT: I've got a couple of illustrations up here.
A Few Sandwiches Short - Chapter Two uploaded 21/1/05
Reply With QuoteRegardless, here's the next chapter. Unbeta'ed and written mostly at two in the morning. Contains a little bit of coarse language. Uhm, and it's really short. 1200 words.
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Originally Posted by Heald
