2013.09.15 - Not the Last Temptation of Huntress

Helena Bertinelli bodily drags the last remaining mook back to the closest section of the docks, pulling her now soggy crossbow and aiming it at the man. "Up on the dock. Now." She's steered them toward some metal ladder rungs set into the side of the pier, and pushes her prisoner toward them before grasping one in her free hand to start pulling herself up at the same time. God, this water is DISGUSTING. She'll have to shower in BLEACH to get the slimey nasty feel of it out of her hair.
"Yea. Yea." The hitman tries to sound tough, but it's hard to disguise the sheer -relief- he has at being taken into Huntress' custody... after what he watched happen to the other assassins who boarded Jackie Estacado's yacht-- and shot it full of holes. He keeps his hands on the back of his head, having long since lost his primary sidearm, after dragging himself up onto the dock. There's a brief, furtive glance hither and yon, but let's be fair, here... there's nowhere to run, and even if Huntress -didn't- catch him... there are shadows everywhere. "Go on bitch, take me in, I'll make bail so fast your head'll spin."
"No." Huntress keeps her crossbow trained on the mook. "You're goiing to tell me everything you know about Mandragora. Now spill."
"Mandragora?" The assassin, who happens to be a man named Giovanni who just goes by 'Joe', spits to the side, "How stupid d'you think I am? Ain't no rats in Gotham City." If the ever-turning cycle of dirty cops doesn't get him? Well. The reach of men like Thorne and Mandragora isn't stopped by prison bars, either.
Huntress's eyes narrow and her crossbow doesn't waver even though she's still dripping like a half-drowned rat. "Tell me what I want to know, or I hand you over to the Bat." Yup, she just threatened to NOT take the guy to the cops. And god knows, having to deal with the Bat is one of HER least favorite things to do, so it makes a pretty good threat in her book.
"Look I dunno who you think I am." Joe observes, with a little bit of nervousness showing through the derisive defiance. No, he doesn't want to go to the Bat-- his night just keeps getting worse and worse. "I don't even -know- the guy." Joe met Steven Mandragora once, if you can call it that-- Huntress knows better than most how well insulated the premiere mafiosos can be. "Can't even prove he paid for this hit if I -wanted- to, goddamn." Which, no, he really doesn't. 
"This douchebag Estacado's been firebombing and raiding every deal he gets wind of, plenty of men in this city an' across the bay want him rubbed out. Good money in it." The muscular buttonman frowns, deeply. "Least, if he weren't some kind of fuckin' Demon."
Is THAT who that was on the rooftop? Huntress mentally files away the name Estacado, but that's not why she's here. And she's not going to let this mook distract her. "I don't give a rat's ass about some fucking demon. I want what you know about Mandragora." She takes a step toward the man to try and intimidate him some more. Because face it. She's becoming a bit of a broken record over here.
"Yea that's fucking nice!!" Joe backs up, as Huntress steps forward, then again-- then his back is against one of the buildings lining the waterfront, and he's glancing left and right for a way around that's not real easy to spot. "I told you, I can't give you Mandragora! Even if I could, i'd be -dead- before it was any use to anybody!" One thing's for sure: the mook believes what he's spouting. If only he still had his rifle, this could all be taken care of another way... a better way. The resentment is clear alongside the fear and stress that are building on his face, "You fucking /dense/? Don't speak English?!" He turns a little hostile, because let's face it-- that's how he responds to stress. 
There's a third voice that speaks up into the rather irreconcilable confrontation, from the alley off to Huntress' right, and Joe's left. "You want Mandragora?" The smooth, familiar voice inquires, as Jackie steps to the mouth of the alleyway, still half-concealed in shadow, a flickering streetlamp casting its irregular glow across the waterfront. "-I- can get you Mandragora. In the physical condition an' state of mind you prefer." If anyone can smell a vendetta, it's Jackie Estacado. 
Joe pipes up quickly, "Y-you're batshit, man, nobody fucks with them, you don't know who you're fuckin' with!!!"
Huntress manages to only flick her eyes to the right once when who she presumes is Estacado speaks up. "What's in it for you?" she asks the new voice. It's GOT to be a bad idea, but if it gets her Mandragora, she's willing to at least listen to this weirdo. "Shut up, ass. You've just become worthless."
"Should already know the answer to that." At least, from what Jackie is quickly gathering about this particular, personal mission. He more or less ignores the bagman, leaning one shoulder into the corner of that building and peering around it to Huntress, instead. "Every motherfucker on my list likes to talk big about honor, loyalty, an' Family." 
Jackie fishes in his long, black duster for a pack of smokes, and even offers to share after he pops one between his lips. "None of 'em are loyal to more than their own fuckin' greed. None of 'em shy about who gets hurt. You didn't know that, you wouldn't be so eager to find that fat fuck." At least, that's Jackie's hypothesis. 
"All I want's the satisfaction of knowin' Mandragora gets what he has comin'. To use his resources to take on the next set. Maybe you help me trip up a few more, you decide I'm good for my word."
Huntress finally fires the bolts in her crossbow at the man. But instead of perforating him, the bolts skim his sides and pin him to the wall by his clothing. Once the mook is 'dealt with', she looks at Jackie with an open scowl. "Okay, first off, I'm not doing shit to help you if you're gonna keep letting those ... things shred people into chunks." She stalks past Jackie away from the water's edge and back toward where her Ducati is hidden, partly because the sooner she gets home the sooner she can scrub the grime off of her skin with a brillo pad, and partly so she can talk more freely.
"Makes war a pain in the ass when you can't kill enemy soldiers." Jackie points out, noncommitally. "An' what about Mandragora? We gonna rap his knuckles, give him a stern talkin' to, and trust in upstandin' souls to try and then incarcerate him?" There's a hesitant glance towards the surviving hitman before Estacado turns to pace Huntress, leaving the squirming mook... for now. 
"That one's Giovanni Rosetti." Jackie notes, his voice quieting even as the distance between him and the assassin increases. "Part of a crew, attached to Alfonse Ghiradelli, capo workin' his angle under Mandragora. His pool of soldiers just got a lot smaller tonight, leaves him vulnerable, leaves his link exploitable. I tied these hitmen up? Turned 'em over? Equation's totally different. More people, gonna die. The -wrong- people, dig?" One dark eyebrow arches towards Huntress, even if she's still walking away from him. 
Jackie just stays a couple steps behind, and well within earshot. "Be real about the kind of people you're fightin', here. You open the file of any dead man out in that bay, you're gonna see a trail of violence and death and bought judges an' hung juries. Dead women, kids, but free monsters. Why you think that is?"
As soon as Huntress thinks they're safely far enough away, she turns and GLARES at Jackie. "Look, asshole, I don't give two shits about these people. They can all choke on their own vomit for all I care. But I just /know/ that if you go around slaughtering people -- especially ones tied to Mandragora -- the BAT is going to fucking blame ME for it. If you can't do this without racking up a huge body count, I can and WILL throw you under the bus with the Bat. Capice?" And yes, she very pointedly did NOT answer his question about what she plans to do to Mandragora if she ever corners him.
There's a bit of a chuckle, at that. A decidedly different emotional response than the -last- guy Huntress threatened with the Bat. He leans back on one fine leather-clad foot, and just grins wolfishly through a nod. "Yea. I know about the Batman." He says it with ominous, almost cinematic overtones. There's something hidden there under the bravado and amusement, however-- something decidedly more respectful. "He takes me down, he takes me down. He wants to work up a nice cozy cell to protect these mouthbreathers, that's his angle. I'll take my three hots an' a cot with a smile, knowin' every son of a bitch in my wake is out of business, and hard." 
It's a claim that's hard to outright dismiss, with the reprisal on the hitsquad after him tonight. "You want deniability? It ain't as nice as havin' your bow, and it means I won't be able to do quite as much for you as I might, otherwise..." it's unspoken promise, tied to a dangerous idea, but there's no malevolence-- Jackie's not threatening her. Something less cliche. "But it ain't a dealbreaker. You never said how you wanted Mandragora prepped." Half of that predatory smile returns, glimmering more fully in amber-brown eyes.
Huntress stares at Jackie with a frown. "And who made you judge, jury, and executioner? From over here, you're not looking any better than mooks like that bastard back there. Slaughtering people is just wrong, no matter who they are or what they've done." At least ONE thing Oracle has pounded into her head has stuck.
That does get a bit of a snap from Jackie, "I tried to walk away. Tried to walk away again. Every time, it costs a little more, an' always in blood." Not enough of it his own. "World makes a point upside your head hard enough, maybe it's time to listen." At least, that's the short version. "I'm not makin' any apologies for what I am, or what I've done. But if you really think no one in this world needs killing, I gotta get me some of that Sesame Street shit you're smokin'." Jackie lights up his own cigarette, then, illuminating sternly hewn features and olive skin that speak to a similar heritage to Helena's own. 
"Sneakin' onto somebody's boat, linin' up your sights, trying to gun down a whole room full of people you think are gathered around a table chattin'? That's an execution." There's a jerk of his head out towards the dark water, and the vanished yacht. "Tearin' apart the triggermen? Cutting down anyone who'll defend soulless /fucks/ like Mandragora by killin' whoever he asks 'em to kill? That's fucking /karma/. You stop chanting those talkin' points long enough, you'll remember it too."
He's just not listening. Huntress crosses her arms, then grimaces at how the grime is starting to dry in her hair. "Look, I've done the whole kill everyone schtick. All it did was create MORE mooks that needed to be killed. They're like ants, they'll NEVER stop if you just stomp on the nest and don't take out the queen. It took HAL beating that shit into my head for me to finally get it. Now, that's not saying that I'm not gonna do to Mandragora what he fully deserves if I ever get my hands on him, but I really don't think mowing through the mooks is really gonna do any good in the long run."
There's a slow return of a smile, and this time, Jackie does nod agreement-- after a fashion. "Yep. Some of 'em are just scared, too, doing bad shit because they don't see a way out. You cross a certain line in this life, you know what you're risking, though." And yes, it's clear Estacado considers himself in that number. It's been made -abundantly- clear to him. The smirk fades to a moment far away, eyes drawn out over the water. His hand slips unconsciously up to the center of his chest, then Jackie lets out a sigh. 
"Look. That's why I take in the ones I can. That's why I'm not just guttin' and burning all of it. There's no gettin' rid of vice, and you're right-- gut 'em, leave the carcass, all you get is a meaner fish to fry. Business don't have to be done with no class, no honor, y'know? This mess had to be made, now I got their attention, now I got 'em scared, and on top of fear-- You got angry, guaran-fuckin-teed. You want a shot at men who spend their whole lives protecting their own asses, you gotta make an opening first." Tearing through everyone to get to the kingpins is a bit of a simplification of Jackie's approach, it seems.
Huntress studies Jackie for a long moment. "So that mean you're NOT gonna do this again?" Hopefully? Augh. She grimaces again as another whiff of the vile harbor water drying in her hair catches her attention.
"I'll do what I gotta do." Jackie admits, "But the last thing I want is to turn any city into a blender." ** HaHAhaHahaHAHahahah Jackiiiiie.... ** For one reason or another, the assertion is punctuated with a grimace, a sharp glance aside-- as if in response to some unseen speaker. Something that only taunts in his own head-- usually. ** We will FEAST. ** "Anything you can do to point me at the -right- targets? Only gonna help with that." 
Jackie just ignores the ravenous voice, covering discomfort with a wink, "They're gonna keep gunnin' for me, but they don't know what they're fucking with. You think my intentions are as fucked as the rest? Look into the Franchetti crews. Since I dealt with 'Uncle' Frankie." Frankie 'Kill the Children Too' Franchetti. Ironically enough? A contract on the Bat was the nail in that coffin.
Huntress considers this a little more seriously. Pointing this psycho at specific targets would hopefully mean less chaos than what happened here tonight. Hm. "Well, if I can't personally, I might know someone that can. BUT. You think I'm all hippy peacenik not wanting to hurt anyone, the person I'm thinking of is militant vegan compared to me."
"I think you're tryin' real hard to keep it between the lines, believe in an ideal that sure -sounds- good." Jackie theorizes, studying Huntress through momentarily narrowed eyes. There's a degree of irony in the observation, to be sure. "I got my own ways of finding these guys, findin' the chinks in their armor... but I'm not dumb enough to turn my nose up at info. And Mandragora?" One eyebrow arches, perhaps simply curious.
God. She IS trying really hard to walk that tightrope, isn't she? Is her vendetta with Mandragora really worth all of this shit? She's starting to think it might not be. Taking a tired breath, "Look, I just... fuck it, I just don't know anymore. And right now, I really don't feel like having this conversation." And anyway, if she's going to have THIS level of questioning her own motivations, she'd rather do so with someone she knows and TRUSTS. Like, maybe Oracle.
"Suit yourself." Jackie concedes, nodding once to Huntress. Taking a drag from his cigarette, he steps back into the alleyway more fully, illuminated primarily by that glowing cherry. There's a moment spent studying Helena thoughtfully, perhaps taking in more than she might like-- but Estacado holds his tongue, for now. "I ain't tryin' to fuck with you." At least someone in Gotham is trying to do the right thing-- even if the Batman's little network seems horribly underequipped for the job, to Jackie. "Just figuring out how to do a little good. I'll be in touch." Or they will. It's hard to predict.
"Yeah, whatever." Tonight was a complete cluster fuck. The only thing Huntress has left to look forward to is getting home and showering until she can't smell the harbor in her hair anymore. She doesn't bother saying anything else to Estacado, and simply turns and walks away. Oh, ew. Augh. Her shoes are squelching.
Category:Log