Chapter Text
The Savoy siblings’ first impression of Mordecai Heller was that Asa Sweet had handed them off to a rude book keeper to be their new leader. Their second impression was that the boss really needed to watch his back, because their new colleague clearly had his own agenda in mind.
Of course, all of those observations came several months into their stay in St. Louis. Before all of that, it had all started the way most things do – when the unexpected happened.
The Savoy siblings had been caught hijacking shipments from the south. The bootlegging pair had been ready to shoot their way out – but when they’d been brought before the boss, Asa Sweet had surprised them by offering to hire them on the spot. It turned out the shipments were being delivered down to his gang in St. Louis and the siblings daring to steal it right out from under his nose had impressed him so much he’d elected to give them a choice: work for him, or be killed.
It wasn’t a choice at all, of course, but the Savoys played along. One look over at Nicodeme and Serafine could tell he was thinking the same thing she was: they’d check out what the so-called ‘Marigold gang’ was like and if it wasn’t to their tastes, they’d just sneak out in the middle of the night. They’d done it before and they’d do it again, as many times as they had to.
In the meantime, they might as well enjoy the guided tour of St. Louis in Mr Sweet’s car. Serafine had a hunch mobsters and bootleggers all had a pact that they had to change their surnames to the most ironic choices possible when they got into ‘the business’, but she figured now was the wrong time to rib him about it. So she settled for watching out the window instead, passively taking in her surroundings.
St. Louis was bigger than she expected, if a little parochial. It was going to take time getting the lay of the land in a new town like this.
And then they saw the hotel.
The Maribel was one of the most beautiful buildings the Savoys had ever set eyes on – a red and gold building climbing up into the smoggy St. Louis sky. When she and Nicodeme locked eyes again, she could tell he was thinking the same thing she was – that if this was what working for Asa Sweet was going to entail, they both could probably get used to it.
“Dis is your hotel?” she asked.
“She’s a beaut, isn’t she?” he said, puffing up from the front seat. “Most gorgeous building in the entirety of St. Louis – and the biggest bootlegging operation this town has ever seen, especially since – well, never mind that for now.” The siblings exchanged a glance, mentally filing the information away for later. Suddenly Asa slowed down, abruptly taking a right turn away from the hotel. “Ah, that reminds me… one more pick up to make; God knows he’ll be grouchy if I’m a minute late.”
Nicodeme and Serafine exchanged another glance at that – were they meeting someone even Asa Sweet had to answer to?
As the car headed down a bunch of quiet roads surrounding the train station she was sure Nicodeme had had the same thought as her – that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. She was confident the two of them could take out a cat like Asa if it came to a fight; he was obviously the kind of boss who sent out lackeys to do most of the dirty work, but if he had a partner who was actually capable with a firearm she wasn’t keen to roll those dice…
The car pulled to a stop down a side road, mounting the kerb as the Savoys laid eyes on someone waiting on the street.
Someone who looked like a book keeper.
Everything about him was austere – his fur was all-black with splashes of white, he had a set of strange little glasses perched on the tip of his nose, reflecting light away from sharp olive eyes. His dark coat was buttoned up to his neck, fur combed flat and not a whisker out of place.
Serafine immediately disliked him.
But she held her tongue as the stranger popped the door open, opting to size him up instead. It was hard to tell from inside the car but she was confident he was shorter than Nicodeme – maybe even slightly shorter than her, too. He filled out his coat well enough, but he was pretty slim outside of that – there wasn’t much weight to him. Certainly no match for the Cajun Gator if it came to a punch up. Though who knew how proficient he was with a pistol…
The newcomer sat down in the passenger seat, closing the door behind him and arranging his coat about him.
“Good day for a pick up, Heller!” Asa boomed. “I’ve nabbed a couple of other clever cats on the road. Maybe you’ll be seeing more of each other around the hotel, hmm?”
The tuxedo cat turned his head, fixing them both with a harsh look. Serafine stiffened in her seat, but smiled back at him.
The other cat stared for a moment before he let out a dismissive tch and turned back around, saying nothing and simply folding his paws in his lap.
The Savoy siblings exchanged an annoyed glance. Had – had this creature seriously just tutted at them?
Serafine slumped into the back-seat, folding her arms and frowning as Mr Sweet brought the car around to head back to the hotel. As much as she didn’t want to let her annoyance get the better of her, she had a bad feeling her initial hopes for a new start were about to be significantly complicated.
Still, she wasn’t about to let this one weird thing put her off taking full advantage of her and Nico’s new appointment. The hotel was a gorgeous building, no doubt one of the oldest in town – and if she could get a suite for her and her brother there might be room to host their other followers, as well.
And after it all, it wasn’t like they’d have to work with this ‘Mr Heller’, anyway. She got the sense Mr Sweet had hired him long before the two of them, so he probably already had a partner.
♣
“So from now on, you’ll be working with Mr Heller!” Asa enthused.
The Savoys stopped, blinked. “Say what?” Serafine said.
The four of them had been gathered in Mr Sweet’s office at an unconscionably early hour in the morning, Asa at his desk and Mr Heller sitting in front of it, looking as perfectly turned out as ever. The monochrome cat always had the look of someone displeased and doing a poor job of hiding it, but now he was openly frowning. Even his tail was twitching back and forth like an irate pendulum.
She couldn’t blame him. The Savoys had hoped that since there were two of them, Asa would let them be a pair, just like the weasel-faced one and the simpering coward were. The black and white cat had been the furthest thing from their minds as a potential choice.
“Geez, don’t look so put out,” Asa said. “I thought you’d be grateful I’ve seen fit not to split the pair of you up.”
“Oh, no, it’s – it’s not dat,” Serafine said quickly. Heller raised one of his big white brows – he obviously didn’t buy it for a second. “We assumed your Mr Heller already had a partner? Haven’t de two of you worked together for some time?”
There was a look, then – a sharp one from Heller to Sweet – and the boss fidgeted in his seat. He reached into his drawer, pulling out a cigar. Heller fidgeted even more – crossing and recrossing his legs.
“Don’t fidget like that, Heller, I’ll crack a window,” Asa grumbled. He lit up, taking a few deep puffs before opening the window and blowing out a cloud of smoke. “Truth is, there’s been some… uh, shake ups in town lately. Couple of my old enforcers got nervous and skipped out. Wes is an old hand, some of my other heavies, too… but Mr Heller here is a new acquisition. Y’see… before you showed up, there was another player in town. Now they’re yesterday’s news, Heller came to my door, hat in hand. So I hired him on, same as you.”
Heller frowned harder for some reason, but he didn’t contradict Asa about anything. He cleared his throat, his usual flat and controlled tone more strained than usual. “Mr Sweet, far be it from me to agree with these – newcomers,” he said, pausing just long enough that Serafine sensed he’d had a much less complementary word in mind, “But they have a point. I’d be far more effectively deployed as a solo agent reporting directly to you –”
“You still will be reporting to me,” Asa interrupted, waving a hand through the cloud of his cigar smoke, “But I’ve proposed this arrangement for a reason, Heller. Both Wes and Fish are familiar with St. Louis, as are you. The Savoys here aren’t. It’s no good sending them out on a job only for them to get lost and cost me – us – time and money. Don’t get your tail in a twist, now – I’ve picked you specifically for your experience, so you can lead them and help them grow. If anything I’m handing you a promotion.”
“So you… you sayin’ we answer to Heller now?” Serafine said slowly. She wasn’t sure if she was pleased with the idea that their beautiful hotel suite and brand new life of crime came at the cost of their boss being this cranky book-keeper looking cat.
“Yep,” Asa said, popping the p. He looked over at the three of them, all of them silent and neither party looking at one another. “Oh, no more complaints?” Heller opened his mouth to speak but Asa quickly swivelled his chair around to face the window, cutting him off. “Perfect. I’ll call you all back here when your first job is coming up, but for now – dismissed. Why not try and get to know one another in the meantime?”
Serafine got the distinct sense Sweet was aiming that more at Heller, which only compounded her bad feeling. She half expected their new leader to push back further, but he simply rose from his seat, brushed off his suit and pushed past the siblings out of the room.
The siblings immediately shared a look and Serafine knew Nico was thinking the same thing she was: they needed to get a handle on this, now.
The two of them quickly followed Heller out of Asa’s office, where it looked like he was trying to escape out of the hotel as quickly as possible. He’d made the mistake of taking the elevator instead of the stairs, though and no matter how hard he jammed the button it still hadn’t come.
“Guess you not used to working in a team, huh?” Serafine called. She figured she’d rip the bandage right off – the sooner he got over this hang up about working with others, the better for all of them.
The black cat dropped his paw from the button, sighed. He stared over at the two of them. “The Savoys, was it?”
“Yeah,” Nico said, brightening. He crossed the distance in two strides, holding out his paw to shake. “Nicodeme Savoy. This is my sister, Serafine.”
Heller wrinkled his nose, his look of displeasure increasing. The pause lasted awkwardly long until Heller took his hand, squeezing for only a moment until he yanked his arm free.
“An’ you?” Serafine asked.
“What?”
“What’s your name?” she asked. Off his confused look, she rolled her eyes. “Your first name. We workin’ together, we not callin’ you by surname de whole time. Dat’s jus’ not our style.”
His nose twitched, something about her question ruffling his whiskers. He looked from her to Nico, another twitch passing over his muzzle before he took a deep breath and said, “It’s Mordecai. Mordecai Heller.”
“Quel joli nom!” Serafine exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “What does it mean?”
Mordecai folded his arms and said nothing for a moment. Then he turned away, sighing. “I recommend you use the time before the first job to familiarise yourself with St. Louis. If one of you is to be our getaway driver, I expect you to know these streets like the back of your paw.”
“Well,” Nico said, smiling at Serafine, “That’ll be me-”
But Mordecai had already walked off. He almost bumped into one of the hotel staff in his haste to get away, actually apologising for nearly knocking the laundry out of her paws.
“Is the elevator broken?” he asked her softly.
“It’s being currently serviced, sir,” she answered quickly. “There’s another one at the back of the building if you need –”
“No need,” Mordecai cut in, setting the pile of sheets in her arms straight again. Then he paused, adding, “Thank you. Don’t let me keep you.”
She brightened considerably at that, smiling at him and then spotting the Savoys standing just a few feet away. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
The siblings were left standing silent in the hallway as their supposed new leader made his escape down the stairs without so much as a goodbye.
Serafine tugged on Nico’s sleeve, tipped her head in the direction of their new hotel suite. Asa had indeed provided them with one, though it came with the caveat that they earn their keep. And it was a big room, luxurious and a perfect place to host their followers.
Right now, though, the vast emptiness just served to remind the Savoys of how precarious their position currently was. They both took a seat on the sofa, quiet for a moment.
“So, sister of mine… what are you thinking?”
“Room’s perfect. Job’s perfect.” She sighed. “Co-workers could use some work.”
“Did you notice dat thing the boss said? That there was another player in town but dey went out of business recently?”
“And he said Heller came from them, too. Dat’s trouble.”
Nico turned to look her directly in the eye. “You wanna skip town?”
Serafine looked down, thinking to herself. “Hmm...nah. You know I’m not de type to give up dat easily. We just gotta play dis one smart. We can find a way in wit our new ‘leader’. After all, dere’s only one of him – an’ dere’s two of us.”
Nico chuckled. “Good point. If he wants to be a thorn in our side, he won’t be able to keep it up for long.”
Serafine smiled back. ‘Thorn’ was certainly right. She didn’t think she’d ever met someone so prickly.
♣
Over the coming days, she and Nico got acquainted with St. Louis – and tried and failed to get acquainted with their new co-worker. He was just as prickly as their first couple of meetings and the Savoys quickly got the impression he was avoiding them. Worst still, it soon became clear Serafine’s initial impressions of him were underselling how fastidious he was – it was more than just his refusal to have a single stitch out of place in his suits, his entire life was buttoned up.
He could scarcely spend two minutes in their company without fussing at them about something and where the Savoys liked to joke, to relax and kick back Mordecai spent every hour of the day doing something or other: either maintaining his weapons, tidying, reading, carrying out errands for Mr Sweet, or else working on something that he was keeping under strict lock and key.
If his social skills weren’t so damn woeful, he would have been the perfect worker. As it was, the Savoys got the impression everyone put up with his eccentricities just because his skills in every other area were exemplary.
They hadn’t managed to get him to open up much about his old employer, either. The Savoys had heard through the grapevine the establishment had been called the Lackadaisy – a perfectly whimsical name, though even that praise hadn’t managed to raise a smile from their colleague – but that was all the information they currently had. So far it was the only chink they’d managed to find in Mordecai’s armour, besides his habit of overreacting to dirt or mess. Whenever the topic of his old speak easy came up, he’d manage to get even more frosty than usual.
He was so buttoned up they couldn’t resist pranking him on their first job. Still, it was a surprise when he stripped down and chased the lawyer into the woods in with nothing more on than his underclothes and no other weapon than the hatchet in his hand.
As he hacked their unfortunate target to pieces, the Savoys stood leaning against the car, contemplative.
“Peekon’s pretty literal-minded, huh, Serafine?” Nico said, chuckling as they shared a cigarette.
She nodded, thoughtful. “Now I think about it, dere is one person I have seen him get on with.”
“Serious? Who?”
“Well, one type o’ person,” she took the cigarette, a cloud of smoke following the wave of her hand. “De staff at de hotel. Maybe dat’s how he think – too straight line, too straight forward. He never exactly nice to dem, mais de get on all right – ‘cause all the staff just stick to scripts. He know what to expect from dem. Dey don’t joke wit him like we do. Take him off guard.”
Nico raised an eyebrow. “What, you think we should get serious if we want his respect?”
Serafine laughed harshly. “Forget it! Nah, we promise we ain’t gonna change to fit in here. Dey gotta accept us. We didn’t make ourselves smaller to fit in back in de orphanage. We ain’t gonna do it here, neither.”
“So…?”
Serafine checked Mordecai was still finishing off with the lawyer – the poor creature had long since gone still under the swing of the hatchet and their colleague would doubtless be done soon. Even still, she leant over to Nico and lowered her voice. “Are you up for a little game?”
Nico smirked. “Always. What you got in mind?”
“Between us, we’re gonna crack petite hache over there. Figure out what make him tick. Points awarded for making him pull a face other den annoyance or disdain. More points for getting on friendly terms.”
Nico watched as their colleague straightened and cleaned the blood off the axe’s blade in the under brush. “Hmm…sounds fun. But how do we determine de winner?”
Serafine took a long drag and blew out a smoke ring before stubbing the cigarette under her shoe. “Easy. Winner is the first one to make him show he trusts us. Completely. Unequivocally. No room for doubt – he show for sure he would trust us wid his life. You catch my drift?”
Mordecai had gotten through cleaning off his weapon, though his clothes were still a mess. Any second now he’d be heading back and discovering the prank they’d played on him. She quickly held out a paw to her brother.
“How bout it? You in?”
“Serafine,” Nicodeme said, taking her paw and quickly letting go. “I wouldn’t miss dis for de world.”