Chapter Text
The death of Kain Wisteria hits the broadsheets the same way his flicks hit the theaters: hard, fast, and practically inescapable the first few weeks after it opens. Beloved Silver Screen Actor-Turned-Big Five Director Dies at Home Surrounded By Family. Famed Film Mogul Dies in Hollywood Estate; Will Tinselstown Ever Be the Same Without Its Best Auteur? Wisteria Son Gives Heart-Wrenching Statement About Father’s Legacy; Can the Heir-Apparent Reach the Heights of His Father’s—
“That’s quite enough of that drivel.” The Professor takes his joe the way the boys used to take their bombshells back in the bunker: blonde and sweet, peeling the cap of his creamer back from the cup with a practiced pull. “It’s bad enough that I suffer hearing it from every street corner, I refuse to hear it before my morning coffee.”
“Can’t swing a dead cat without hitting something about the Wisterias these days.” The paper flutters under Santa Monica’s sweet sway, but Obi’s quick, dropping his hat before the sheets can tumble after its siren call. That’s the danger of a place like this: even the breezes try to fleece you. “You’d think half the town laid down got in the coffin with him, the way everyone’s been carrying on.”
“Oh, wouldn’t he just have loved that,” Forzeno mutters— not his usual stage whisper, but lower. Quiet enough Obi nearly misses it over the hustle and bustle of breakfast and the traffic of the boulevard. “Now, cut the chatter. Any more about Kain Wisteria and his lot and you’ll put me off my breakfast. This is the only decent place to get a poached egg in this whole godforsaken city, and I plan to enjoy every bit of it.”
“Aw, ease up, Professor.” Obi slouches back in his seat, nursing his own cup— black, the only way they served it in the mess— and wishing he had the scratch to give it some legs. Might make the rest of the morning go down easier, anyways. “You know I wouldn’t let you waste a cent of that hard-earned egghead dough. You leave anything behind, and I’ll be sure to leave that plate cleaner than when they put it down on the table—”
“Listen here, knucklehead, I already told you— I’m not paying for your food. Not with my money, and certainly not with university grants.” The old egg beater fixes him with his best wasn’t-born-yesterday glare, shoulders practically pickets as he digs into his fancy feast. “I agreed to this little outing with the understanding that it was a much belated show of gratitude for my consultation on your last case. Pro bono, might I add.”
Agreed was some real rose-colored glassed talk; it’d taken more than his usual cajoling to get the old goat to consider putting down his rocks— and the promise of the best breakfast in the city to convince him out the door. Forzeno wasn’t an easy man to know, and an even hard one to get close to— but he was a good one for a fella to have in his back pocket, especially in Obi’s line of work.
“Gotta admit, it was a nice change of pace from the usual cheating spouse song-and-dance.” One that involved fake gems and some pretty regional gravel— and a payday that would keep the lights on, even if his showers were still cold. “A couple more like that and maybe I’ll be able to show a bit more gratitude to my favorite egghead.”
Fork and knife still over the Professor’s fine china, as steady at the stare the man fixes on him, serious as angina. “Perhaps you should consider a career with steadier pay.”
Obi lets his brows really flirt with his hairline, getting Forzeno’s dander up before he even says, “What? Like taking hits? I guess I was always an ace with—”
“As in law enforcement,” he snaps wearily, sawing through his poached egg with more gusto than the medium demands. “Last I heard, they were taking soldiers fresh off the boat and putting them into blues. You’re practically over qualified.”
Maybe, if all they cared about was an able body and a history of saying ‘yes, sir.’ But Obi didn’t need to hoof it down to the station to know they’d turn a face like his away at the door. “I’d never survive walking a beat. Get myself clipped day one sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong.”
Forzeno grunts, taking a long moment to chew before he adds, “It might not be as exciting as the life of a Private Eye, but it’s regular work. And a damn sight better at writing checks that can be cashed.”
“Now now, Professor, my work’s regular enough.” There’s no shortage of jilted spouses in this town, after all. “And I can’t go take down my shingle now when things are just starting to get good. This dame might have been a B-Lister, but she’s got to have connections, the kind that don’t want the police or the paps all up in their business.”
“And that’s what you want to do with your life?” The Professor settles back in his seat, nonplussed. “Get your hands dirty for a bunch of glittering fools?”
“As long as they got the cash to keep the lights on and the water running. And who knows, maybe I’ll even get to look into a case like this one.” He knocks his knuckles right over Wisteria’s piercing gaze. “Millionaire dying at home in bed? That just has conspiracy written all over—”
“Don’t.”
The sternness startles him, eyes jolting up to meet Forzeno’s thousand yard stare. “Professor…?”
Air hisses between the old goat’s teeth, silenced only by another application of poached egg. “You don’t want to get involved in that world. It might seem all bright and shiny, but that only casts deeper shadows. And once you start looking too deep into them…”
Obi slants him a cocky smirk. “They start looking back?”
Lata huffs, shaking his head. “No. They’re usually carrying .45’s.”
For all the pissing and moaning about gratitude and commensurate compensation, Forzeno ponies up for brunch. Practically insists on it once Obi opens his wallet and he counts more lint than coins, shoving a cruller from the case into his hands for good measure.
“You better not tell Eason about this,” he warns, dire inflection and all, like he was one of Wisteria’s villains, ready to chew the scenery. “Or next time I really will stick you with the bill.”
Obi has to admit: he considers it. Not much else to do as he walks two flights up to his office; elevator as broken as the day he signed the papers. Probably part of why he could afford the place to begin with— and why they let him let it out. Not like many people in this part of town were racing to have a guy with his face hanging around the neighborhood.
It’d be funny at least— Suzu twisting all six-foot plus of himself in knots trying to get a cup of joe off the old codger. The kid already got himself into tangles just trying to get five minutes in the elevator with Forzeno; if he knew that a free lunch might be involved, well— God knows Obi’d need something to smile about while he waited around for his next break.
Not that it’ll take long. That’s the good thing about this town: everyone’s looking for the next best thing. And as long as they keep making broads younger and leggier, there’d be unsatisfied husbands looking to make mistresses out of them.
That puts a spring in his step, tackling the last few stairs with enough pep to put Gene Kelly to shame. He might be missing some of that fancy footwork when he shuffles up to his shingle, PRIVATE EYE printed neat on the door, but he puts a real shine on every note of, there’s none so classy as this fair lassie, oh, oh, Holy Moses what a chassis—
Only for the door to swing open right under his hands. Doesn’t even get to squeeze the key in the lock first; just a jiggle to get the teeth to match and suddenly he’s staring at the same worn carpet he has every day for the last two years. Real convenient, but—
Not how he’d left it.
His hand’s just barely brushes the lapel on his coat when a dark figure stands, all black tiger-striped with technicolor, limned by the light straining through the blinds. “You’re the private investigator? Obi?”
There’s a handful of reasons some mook might take it upon himself to break into his office, but all the ones that don’t end with a lead slug in his chest or taking medically unrecommended amount of of iron to his shins wouldn’t have left him with the lights off, waiting for Obi to waltz through that door singing showtunes.
Well, all of them except for one.
“That’s the name on the door.” He saunters past the man— light build, average height, posture that says performer rather than professional killer— sinking into the leather chain behind his desk. Not a hit then. Maybe just one of his hundred unhappy customers, looking for the man who sent his marriage into a tailspin. Never ceases to surprise him that so many men don’t own a mirror. “You got business with me?”
“No. Well, not yet anyway. I mean to make some, though.” The fella hesitates, that smooth, Sinatra voice of his faltering. “Do you mind turning on a light? It’s ridiculous to talk to you like this.”
Obi flicks up his hands, real friendly-like. “Hey, Highness, you got here first. Was just trying to be polite.”
“Yes, I appreciate it, but really—”
There’s a lamp on his desk, a limping metal hunk of junk that’s more liability than light, but Obi reaches behind him, plastic and cord catching between his fingers before he pulls, and—
And there is it, all lit up with the bright light of day: the sort of face that could sell toothpaste. That did, up until a few months ago, when they’d plastered a poster for that new Robin Hood movie over it, trading one Wisteria’s smile for another. The better one, he’d joked, getting a real glare from the dame that ran Shidan’s office.
But Obi got to admit, seeing it up close: this one ain’t half bad either. “Well, mister, didn’t expect to see your name on my dance card. What can I do you for?”
He slouches back, feet kicked up just in time to miss the desk entirely as Zen Wisteria tells him, entirely straight-faced, “I want to hire you.”
Good thing his heels are back on the ground, otherwise he’s not sure how he’d stay in the chair. “Me? I’m flattered, chief, but you could have any dick in this city on your payroll, and you’re gonna come choose me?”
“You helped out a friend recently.” Huh, looks like Little Miss Starlet really wasn’t exaggerating her qualifications. “She told me you were discreet and decently priced.”
There’d be a bit of a price hike from someone in this fella’s tax bracket, but Obi knows better than to say it, not when he follows it all up with, “And no one else will help me.”
There’s a little thrum in his chest, a plucked-chord that resonates all the way up to his teeth. The same one he gets every time some bombshell waltzes in his door, all strutting hips and sashays, and breaks down right in that chair, telling him about the long nights of worrying and the missing pin money and the perfume that wafts from her husband’s collar when she takes them out to wash. That little note of pity that plays at him when he realizes that good people only come to him when they’re out of options.
“All right,” he says, hooking his hands behind his head. This time, his feet don’t miss the lip of his desk. “What’s the problem? Missing money? A no-good dame? Toothpaste not paying like it used to?”
“I want you to look into the death of my father.”
The A-bomb dropped with more subtlety than this. “Your pops? Didn’t he die in his sleep. What’d the coroner say…? Complications from pneumonia.”
Meaning: he’d drowned in his own bed, with not a drop of water in sight. Obi’d seen it before, in that hospital in Saint-Die. Lost good friends from it. A hard death, but better than some.
“That’s the official explanation,” Wisteria agrees, mouth tight. “And Sh— his nurse agreed. But…”
It’s a long moment, one, then two, before Obi prods, “But…?”
Those Wisteria eyes are just as blue as they ever were on film. Bluer, maybe. “My father was murdered.”