2012-12-02 Donuts and SIM Cards

It's late, and Jim Gordon is working. Typical. Ever since getting divorced from his ex-wife, Barbara Kean-Gordon, he's developed a penchant for working long hours, even though his status as Commissioner voids him from earning overtime pay.
The politics demand it.
Riding with his trusted right hand, the homicide detective known as Benson, the two have taken one of GCPD's unmarked vehicles into the city. As for Jim, he's headed for a nearby train station, which will take him home to safety, warmth, and his daughter Barbara, if she should still be awake. As he rides shotgun in the car, he eyes his cellular phone, waiting patiently for a response from the text message he'd sent to his daughter fifteen minutes ago.
"You hungry, Gordon?"
Jim looks up at Benson, distracted. "Huh?"
"I said, you hungry? I could sure go for a coffee and a snack."
"Oh, sure. Whatever, Benson. There's a cafe around the corner."
Benson hits the breaks and flips on a turn signal, ready to head down a side street toward the aforementioned cafe.
It feels good to be back on a job again. Something that isn't a suicide run. Something that pays well and has some adventure involved.
Of course, fate's still messing with Domino these days. With the loss of her Audi she's down to following after the unmarked squad car in a jet black Nissan sedan. It could have been worse, though it could have been lightyears better. The important details are that it runs and it doesn't draw attention to itself, which covers the basic necessities.
A little legwork and a few calls later and she's already on the Commissioner's trail, having only accepted the job at six this morning. She's a determined sort, when she's got something in mind to do then it will get done.
The real challenge, that's what lies ahead. Her target isn't traveling alone. Somehow she needs to take his cell without anyone noticing, take it somewhere long enough to ghost the existing SIM card then swap it out with the bugged card, then return it to Jim, again without anyone knowing.
Simple. Except..that it isn't. Good thing that probability tends to favor her as well as it does.
"Oh, my, God," blurts out Benson. "Would you look at that? A god damn parking spot!"
"Bless my holster," curses Gordon. "That's about as hard to find around here as the Batman himself."
With a coy smirk, Benson pulls into the parking spot, just a few spaces down from the late night cafe itself. "Look at it this way, Gordon. I can get the goods, you can have a smoke."
Gordon raises his eyebrows in concession. "Good point," he murmurs, then pops open the door when Benson has finished parking. "Just... what ever you get, get me something too, okay?"
"Sure, pal." With a grin, Benson locks the car and heads for the cafe.
With a quiet sigh, Gordon heads over toward a vacant telephone booth and prepares a cigarette. Out comes a pack of Pall Mall red's, which he lights with a zippo before taking the first, relieving drag. He eyes the cigarette warily, before reaching once again for his cell phone. He checks through his text messages, then his private FaceBook account, before letting out a sigh. "Christ, Barbara, I know you're not sleeping -this- early on a Sunday night." He shifts his hand to pocket the cell phone, before studying the poorly lit road with a hesitant expression. They weren't exactly in a bad part of town, but anything could happen in Gotham at this hour.
Holy crud, they actually found a parking spot! Some of Dom's luck might be rubbing off on the two in that car. When the two climb out she finds the nearest place to stop, legal or not (actually she blocks a fire hydrant, but it's a convenient location!) She's already planning out her next move when the two split apart, one up and walking away while her target hovers around by a pay phone. Weird. But, a moment of opportunity has struck. From the darkened interior of that Nissan, Domino slowly grins. In a heartbeat she's got her own cell in her hand, the wireless earbud already in place. It takes her but a moment to pull through her contacts, making the call.
"Hey. It's me. Got a minute? Great. Pull up the number for the payphone on the corner of Sixth and Davidson? ... Right. If you can buy me sixty seconds then the first round of drinks are on me next time." Grin. "You got it, kiddo."
Seconds later the payphone right in front of the Commissioner starts to ring. By then Domino's already out of her car, making her approach. She's got exactly one chance to pull this off, if she misses then Jim's going to get suspicious and any future attempts will be like pulling teeth. Quick and easy, let's see some finesse out there.
With the phone back in his pocket, Jim is visibly startled with the payphone rings. It's a brief gesture, his eyes flashing behind spectacles. For a moment, he eyes the pay phone warily, going so far as to take another drag of his cigarette. A pay phone ringing at this hour can only mean one thing.
A drug deal.
The Commissioner briefly casts a glance toward the cafe inside which Benson waits behind a short line. Like it or not, he would always be a beat cop at heart, no matter his rank. With a grunt, he steps into the pay phone, going so far as to leave his cigarette-wielding hand just outside, and picks up the receiver. His answer his quite simple, for now, he's doing his best to impersonate a criminal.
"Hey."
"Yah, hey..this is Teddy, from Joe's Pizza Palace..? I'm havin' some trouble finding your address here, Mister Conrad. I'm out on Jefferson, could you give me some pointers?"
What's the one distraction that always gets people into trouble, a distraction that can come from any place in the world at any hour of the day? A smart phone. As Domino walks along she's got one hand in a trench pocket and the other prodding around on her phone. It's a crazy thing, what she has in mind, but her phone's password protected and there's absolutely no logical reason for things to backfire quite so catastrophically for her.
Besides, it's excellent cover.
Her contact on the payphone does his best to keep Jim occupied, going so far as to cut off any replies if necessary to keep pressing for directions. Getting lost out on these roads late at night is something that no one wants to do, and Teddy has a delivery to make or else it's coming out of his salary!
Then shoulders collide. Domino plays the part of 'not paying attention' like a pro, letting out a stifled yelp as she simply lets go of her own phone, its screen dark, sliding down her leg to almost gracefully drift across the sidewalk rather than clatter and draw attention to itself. In that same motion she reaches out to try and catch Jim so neither of them fall. The pasty, tattooed complexion of her face has been covered up with cosmetics earlier that day, going incognito long enough to get her payment for this job. To the average person, she's just another clumsy citizen, perhaps after a few too many drinks.
One that's also moving very, very quickly to swipe Jim's phone right out of its pocket, easy as can be.
"Oh gosh, I'm a total idiot, sorry! One of those nights!"
Well, that's certainly an interesting way to run a drug deal. Fortunately, Gordon's heard it all before. A little smirk crawls across his face.
"Teddy! Damn it man, am I glad to hear from... Okay, no, right. But listen man, I'm... Yes, no, shut up about the damned pizza. I'm at Sixth and... Sixth and Davison! Listen... no listen..."
Gordon, with a sigh, puts a hand up against the receiver, scowling to himself. "This guy is impossible."
With the phone back to his ear, Gordon forces a smile. "Hey man. I got two hundred bucks, I need as much blow as you can bring me, you hear?" Another pause. "No, I don't want pizza, man. I want... Hey!"
Gordon stumbles and catches himself against the girl, glaring at her for a moment. The phone in his hand falls, clattering against the half-enclosed booth as it's caught by its cord. Then, his eyes flash toward the smartphone clattering across the sidewalk, and his eyes flare. "No, it's, it's okay." He scrambles to snatch up the smartphone from the street, and offers the girl a smile. "Just... just be safe, okay?" he requests, and pockets the smartphone without a moment's hesitation. "Oh, and don't drive! Take the train. You hear?" As he backs toward the pay phone again, it has -completely- slipped the realm of possibility that he was just played. He's concerned about a drunk citizen, while trying to catch a drug dealer, and he still has that lit cigarette in his hand.
Of all the nights to catch a bad string of luck.
It's one thing to be inherently lucky and something altogether different to -take- the good luck right out of everyone around her. Dropping her own phone makes a little more noise than she wants it to but her hand hasn't been played yet, scrambling down to the darkened sidewalk to 'find' her (your) phone just behind the curb. "Such a klutz, was just trying to get myself a ride..." Meek, embarrassed, she quickly pockets the phone and bows her head, hurrying along.
"What the hell ya talkin' about, blow?! Yo..ya there dude? Your pie's gettin' cold out here! Do ya want this delivery or not?"
Call time: Forty-three seconds and counting. Perfect. Domino vanishes around the street corner and gets to work, plugging the stolen phone into an electronic device which, ironically enough, holds the exact same piece of software that the police use to scrub data out of a cellphone. In ten seconds she's got the history of that phone saved to memory. Every place it's traveled on the globe. Every call or message that's gone through it. Every app that might have been purchased or downloaded to it. It's all there. It's also duplicating the SIM's image from the real card to the bugged one.
Twenty seconds in.
The merc deftly swaps the SIMs and tucks the transferring hardware and the original memory card into her pocket, the swap complete.
Twenty-eight seconds later Domino comes back around the corner, peering toward the payphone with the clear expression of someone that managed to lose something important to her. "Excuse me..? I think I mighta grabbed the wrong thing--phone, did you see mine anywhere around there?"
"Hey, Teddy." Gordon keeps up the charade, hoping to catch the would be crook in the act. "Come on, man. Don't play me with this pizza bull. You called a -pay phone-. I was supposed to be here to take the call. Don't worry man, there ain't no cops around." He makes himself sound as convincing of an addict as he can, even going so far as to leer into the phone, putting his body into the act. "I -neeeed- that blow, man."
Pause. Smoke. Puff.
When the woman comes back over, Gordon has to conceal a hiss. He takes the phone away from his ear, glowering at her for a moment before reminding himself that she's just some innocent kid who had a few too many. "What?" he asks, confused for a moment, before it dawns upon him what exactly she was asking. "Oh!" He reaches into his pocket and retrieves the phone that's there, only then does he realize that it's not his. It's an Android model, but a different design. "Oh, my god. I'm so sorry."
After checking the lock screen and clearly recognizing that the background image is -not- his, he offers it back to the woman with an apologetic smile. "I swear, these things all look the same to me."
There's a pause on the other end of the payphone, as well. "Aw hell man, I called a -payphone?- That's..what..I'm not even gonna ask, dude. I got the wrong number. Go get yourself some help or somethin.'"
Click.
The woman offers a sheepish smile in return, holding your phone back out as well. "They do, and it's so dark out here..! Like the start of a bad romance comedy flick or something." Just like that the phones are switched back to their rightful owners, it's almost too easy. "Yeah, that's mine! Great, I gotta get myself a ride here," she repeats as though it's the single most important piece of information your ears are going to receive all night. She turns about-face and starts walking back to the same corner as before, once more poking at the device. This time the action isn't hidden, either. All that's left is to wait long enough for the two cops to roll on out before she returns to her own car.
That's the tough and exciting part of her job out of the way. Now comes the most boring two week stretch she'll have had in quite some time. Lucky... Yeah, right.
After checking the phone given to him, Gordon recognizes it to be his own - the City of Gotham Police Department shield is there on his hold screen's backdrop image. He offers a quiet sigh of relief, then nods his head to the woman curtly. "Good, good," he offers. "Don't drive drunk, and, and tell your friends!" he calls after her, before pocketing the phone and turning back to reclaim the dangling payphone.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!
A busy signal. With a sigh, Gordon hangs up the receiver, never to know whether the caller on the other end was some poor pizza shop owner, or a drug dealer. It's just then when Benson comes back out, balancing two styrofoam cups of coffee and a carton full of donuts.
"Christ, Benson, donuts?" he asks. "Really?"
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