On being a Halo.
Jun. 7th, 2007 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
titusnowlYou don't at all know what you've gotten yourself into.
It's hard not to like this man - this Saint - who swoops down upon you like a chickenhawk one day when you're near your breaking point. There's gratitude, of course - it's an awful lot of money he gives you, and you're not such an awful rotter as to brush that off, even if he does - but there's more to it than that. It's him. He's magnetic.
You meet him at the Stork and Bottle - or rather, he meets you; invites himself to sit beside you and proceeds to make conversation. He's sympathetic and amusing and gets you talking about your problems, making light remarks and asking questions that slip under your radar, and when you leave you put your hand in your pocket for your keys and pull out an envelope containing the exact amount of cash you were up for and a slip of paper with a sketch on it - a childish stick figure with a crooked halo.
You don't catch his name.
Three days later, at tea-time, you have a visitor - a loud, sarcastic blond who introduces himself as Roger and says he's one of the Saint's Halos. He brings sandwiches and beer and a sense of humour as lively as the Saint's had been though coarser, but it still feels strangely like a job interview. Roger tells you about himself - a story a lot like yours - and questions you, his system, like his jokes, being far less subtle.
It isn't until after he leaves that you begin to wonder how he knew where you lived.
You must pass the interview, because you pass the two of them in the street a few afternoons later. Although the Saint pays no more attention to you than any other stranger, Roger looks up long enough to make eye contact - and once they're gone, you find another envelope in your pocket, even though you never passed within arm's length of them.
This one contains a distressingly large champagne diamond wrapped in old newspapers, three sheets, with a stick figure sketched on each one near a particular word - stork, bottle, nine. (You'll later discover this coded message was Roger's idea, and he was terribly proud of it, too. The Saint had been inclined to simply trust to your judgment. You are secretly very, very glad Roger won that discussion.)
When you show up for the appointment, Simon Templar finally introduces himself formally.
Three weeks later you're practically living in his flat in Mayfair - Roger seems to like you, and regularly calls you up to play cards until odd hours of the evening with him and another Halo named Monty, who doesn't seem to like anyone really - and somehow, in these twenty days of good beer and free cigarettes and Pickwickian ribbing, that deal with the diamond has sort of slipped your mind. Until the door waltzes open, and Simon waltzes in, and at one nonchalantly-murmured phrase from him - "Blow, my beauties" - all four of you are suddenly on the neighbouring roof, watching a few large someones having a go at Simon's front door.
That's when you start to realize what you're in for.
It's hard not to like this man - this Saint - who swoops down upon you like a chickenhawk one day when you're near your breaking point. There's gratitude, of course - it's an awful lot of money he gives you, and you're not such an awful rotter as to brush that off, even if he does - but there's more to it than that. It's him. He's magnetic.
You meet him at the Stork and Bottle - or rather, he meets you; invites himself to sit beside you and proceeds to make conversation. He's sympathetic and amusing and gets you talking about your problems, making light remarks and asking questions that slip under your radar, and when you leave you put your hand in your pocket for your keys and pull out an envelope containing the exact amount of cash you were up for and a slip of paper with a sketch on it - a childish stick figure with a crooked halo.
You don't catch his name.
Three days later, at tea-time, you have a visitor - a loud, sarcastic blond who introduces himself as Roger and says he's one of the Saint's Halos. He brings sandwiches and beer and a sense of humour as lively as the Saint's had been though coarser, but it still feels strangely like a job interview. Roger tells you about himself - a story a lot like yours - and questions you, his system, like his jokes, being far less subtle.
It isn't until after he leaves that you begin to wonder how he knew where you lived.
You must pass the interview, because you pass the two of them in the street a few afternoons later. Although the Saint pays no more attention to you than any other stranger, Roger looks up long enough to make eye contact - and once they're gone, you find another envelope in your pocket, even though you never passed within arm's length of them.
This one contains a distressingly large champagne diamond wrapped in old newspapers, three sheets, with a stick figure sketched on each one near a particular word - stork, bottle, nine. (You'll later discover this coded message was Roger's idea, and he was terribly proud of it, too. The Saint had been inclined to simply trust to your judgment. You are secretly very, very glad Roger won that discussion.)
When you show up for the appointment, Simon Templar finally introduces himself formally.
Three weeks later you're practically living in his flat in Mayfair - Roger seems to like you, and regularly calls you up to play cards until odd hours of the evening with him and another Halo named Monty, who doesn't seem to like anyone really - and somehow, in these twenty days of good beer and free cigarettes and Pickwickian ribbing, that deal with the diamond has sort of slipped your mind. Until the door waltzes open, and Simon waltzes in, and at one nonchalantly-murmured phrase from him - "Blow, my beauties" - all four of you are suddenly on the neighbouring roof, watching a few large someones having a go at Simon's front door.
That's when you start to realize what you're in for.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 05:51 am (UTC)That night at the pub they got it back from you and sent it off to Simon's agent in Amsterdam. You didn't get a share of that, because it took the place of your "sign-on bonus."
The large someones coming for an unexpected visit are probably unrelated.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 06:00 am (UTC)