Sam Spaid World of Darkness: Attrition - Just One of Those Days (complete)

[Sam Spaid]

July 28

*Tick*

Sam sighed. Idly she scratched out a circle on the yellow legal pad with the stubby, worn down, remains of number two pencil.

*Tick*

A pair of dots and an aggravated slash resulted in a simple face with a bemused and tired expression. She glanced up at the clock on the wall.

*Tick*

Nine thirty-eight. "DAMNIT!" she groaned as it became obvious that her nine o'clock appointment was a no-show. She hated when they did that. Somehow it was better to sit in the office and wait for walk-ins when none came, than to wait for an appointment only to have them not show up. She wondered what Timmy was up to today.

*Tick*

The calendar said it was Thursday. She blinked, having almost forgotten that simple fact in the light of abject boredom backed up by frustration. Thursdays her father spent the day with his grandson. She'd dropped the boy off this morning, barely an hour ago.

*Tick*

Sam leaned back in her chair and wondered what they were doing. Probably they were at breakfast. If Timmy had his way, and he probably did, they were at Mimi's preparing for a day at Disneyland. Sam's father doted on his grandson as grandparents are wont to do, and he had found himself getting talked into Disneyland more than once this summer. Back in May Sam had purchased a unlimited season pass to the Park for one adult and one child. She and Timmy had gone nearly a dozen times since then, and Timmy and his grandfather had probably gone another half dozen or more. Her son loved it there, never growing tired of it, never growing bored with the same rides and sights.

Sam was a bit sick of it herself. When she had questioned her father about it he had laughed and said that once he figured out that Timmy would believe him if he said that the "It's A Small World" ride was closed he found that he didn't really mind. Sam had laughed, "So a little white lie to save yourself from that ride and you are good to go?"

"Take joy from a child's simple happiness dear. I know I did when you were little," he had told her. It was good advice, and she often did just that, summers were tough, she still had to work, but since school was out she needed to be sure Timmy was looked after. She took one day off a week from June until September, and her father took him on Thursdays every week, but that still left the nanny or a sitter for three days, and sometimes on weekends if she needed to work.

Too much time away from her son, her everything. Without Tim her life wouldn't be the same at all. She rarely thought of it, but she would probably be Police Detective Samantha Spaid instead of Private Detective Sam Spaid. She would likely be more fit, though the past two years had done wonders to get her back to where she had been before Tim was born. She would probably see the doubt about her age in people's eyes when they carded her for liquor, or when she flashed a badge, instead of the more neutral looks she saw now. Still, she would never think of wishing for anything else. Timmy was her world, and if being a mother meant that she didn't look ten years younger than her age anymore, or that she couldn't handle the hours of a police detective in order to raise her son, well, so be it.

*Tick*

Sam considered another cup of coffee, but it was already a little hot, and she was wide awake anyways. She glanced up at the clock again.

*Tick*

"Oh, this is going to be one of those days," he all but cried. Not even five minutes had passed.

[Sam Spaid]

10:13

The rap on the frosted glass door startled Sam awake. She almost toppled from her chair in her surprise. Through the frosted glass she could see the outline of somebody standing in the hall, the florescents in the hallway casting them in sharp relief. The black painted lettering on the door peeked past the shadow on both sides; whomever they were they were either standing sideways, skinny as a model, or both.

"One moment please," Sam called out as she rubber her face and stood up. Thank god I wasn't drooling, the thought, as she moved to the door. "Good morning, please come in."

The man in the hall was something to look at, not because he was particularly good looking, he wasn't, but because he was the kind of cadaverous shell of a human being that it was a wonder he could function. Bones stood out against his skin forcing his facial features to become exaggerated. Deep eye sockets, a thrusting jaw, and high cheekbones that stood out like overhanging rock on the face of a mountain. A skull in a plastic bag, was Sam's first, immediate, impression then, Or that guy from that movie Timmy keeps trying to get me to take him to. Sam resisted the urge to shudder, it wasn't a pleasant comparison.

"I'm Samantha Spaid, please feel free to call me Sam." She offered he hand, and, small though is was given her size it seemed meaty be comparison to the skeletal appendage he offered back. Despite his thinness his grip was strong, his skin dark and healthily tanned, almost copper in color, and what muscle lay beneath the surface of shifted like a snake's under the skin giving an impression of great strength and speed within the ropy bundles.

Sam suppressed another shudder, A client is a client is a payday, she insisted. "How can I help you?"

[Sam Spaid]

"Well," he began, his voice a low drawl that screamed "good ol' boys" to Sam. "Mah boy, he's somewhere in this here city, an' Ah reckon sumbuddy like yous kin find 'im fasser than Ah kin." Sam had to concentrate on his voice to fully follow him, the accent was something you could cut with a knife, but a circular saw would have been better. Even as he spoke he was studying her, his eyes watching with a certain amount of detachment, but clearly appraising her with cool and experienced ease.

"Well, I can certainly do that. Finding lost people and items is one of my specialties."

"Yessim, that's whut Ah wuz told. They sayd, 'Sam Spaid, she's tha best bloodhound thar is in this here city, woman or no.' You'll pardon mah sayin' as much but tha'z what tha man sayd."

Sam grimaced, "Detective Calvin Wright then." It wasn't a question; Sam knew that Wright would have said as much, he was a chauvinist pig who somehow managed to still hold a little respect for Sam. That she'd help him close a half dozen cases in the past few years probably had something to do with that, but he still thought that women shouldn't be police officers, let alone detectives.

The man nodded, the corded muscles in his neck writhing beneath the skin. He creeped her out, something was just off about him, but a job was a job was a paycheck. "Yarp, tha'd be 'im. Sayd he'd have the flatfoots look fer mah boy, but suggested Ah talk wit you. Ah kin pay yer rates, don' worry 'bout tha'."

Sam nodded, "OK, alright." She peeled a business card from a stack on her desk and slid it over, "My rates are on the back. If you have a picture of your son that would help, and I'll have some questions, but I think I can help you out and hopefully have him back to you in the next few days."

"Tha' surely is kind o' you Miss Spaid," he said, pronouncing her named like "Spayed." He shook his head though, "Ah only need ya ta find 'im, Ah'll go an' git 'im mysself."

That was odd. Actually that was full on strange, but Sam mentally shrugged, it made it all that much easier if she only had to find the kid. She reached into her desk and pulled out a yellow legal pad, a hasty sketch of a smiley face in the upper left corner of the pad. "OK, Mr. ...?" she realized she hadn't gotten his name. "I'm sorry, what did you say your name was again?"

"Smythe, John Smythe. Mah boy's name is Billy."

He answered Sam's questions without objection, but Sam couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. Thirty minutes later she closed the door behind him and walked slowly back to her desk, as she studied the photo of Billy Smythe.

[Sam Spaid]

Billy Smythe was not a handsome young man. Thin, nearly to the point of gauntness, like his father, with a wide mouth that split his face unpleasantly, and beady eyes that reminded Sam of the elder Smythe's without the barely concealed intelligence she was sure she had seen. His photo was sitting on her desk as Sam considered the boy's father. He wanted her to locate the boy and then call him, his phone number, or rather the number he could be reached at, was written down on the yellow legal pad with the various other particulars. That itself was odd, if not completely out of bounds. When she'd asked why he had said that it was private, and not relevant to her locating him. The man was being evasive. Something more was going on here, of that she was certain. They way that he'd been looking at her, studying her like some kind of predator, was disturbing enough that Sam double checked the Glock 9mm under her jacket.

She frowned and the unlocked and opened a drawer at the bottom of her desk. Inside was a lock box that she removed and unlocked. She put her foot on the chair and pulled the leg of her jeans up before strapping the holster around her leg. She removed the odd looking revolver from the box and swung the extra long cylinder out. The Taurus Judge Magnum was a personal defense weapon, a short barreled revolver with the capacity to fire both .45 caliber Colt rounds as well as .410 bore shot shells. Sam swung the five shot cylinder out and loaded three hollow point rounds and two, three inch, 00 buck shells. She snapped the cylinder into place ensuring that the first shot would be a .45, before sliding it into the holster and pulling her pant leg down over it. It wasn't the tiniest weapon, but Sam would rather have something that could stop somebody in close where her small size and lack of training would be a weakness.

If Mr. Smythe had something untoward planned for Sam, she would be as ready as possible. She looked at the money on her desk. Five hundred dollar bills, crisp as could be sat there, another sign that something didn't track. He'd not been careful enough as he pulled the money out of his wallet and Sam had seen that aside from maybe twenty-odd dollars the five large bills were it; he'd known her retainer before coming. He'd done his research, which wasn't damning enough, but she just didn't feel like this was legit. Something didn't feel right, like she was standing at the top of an embankment and it was starting to fall away beneath her, one step in any direction would send the whole thing into the brink.

Maybe I'm paranoid, she thought. She doubted it even as it came to her mind. Worry creased her brow as she considered the alternative; she had had precognitive visions before, and this wasn't one of them, but the feeling was similar, like this job was setting into motion a chain of events that would change things, and possibly put her in danger. She wished she'd felt this earlier. She'd have thought twice about taking the job. Payday was nice, but so was being alive and well to go home to her son.

[Sam Spaid]

Sam wanted to follow the elder Smythe, but a promise from him to double her normal fee, retainer included, if she could locate his boy within twenty-four hours, had made up her mind about that in an instant. She knew she could dowse out the boy within that window, unless she couldn't find him at all, and doubling her normal retainer was too tempting to pass up. She would just need to be more careful than usual, and once she located the boy, she would need to be doubly so. The Judge and her Glock were secure on her person as she exited her office and locked up behind her.

Outside in her car Sam pulled out the locket she carried around her neck. The piece was her focus for particular psychic power, not that she needed it, but it made things easier, especially when driving. For all she knew the use of the locket could be entirely psychosomatic, just a way for her conscious mind to focus on driving while her subconscious took over the search. Or something. Sam shrugged and looped the fain chain over her hand as she pulled out into traffic. The pendulum swing of the locket would guide her to her target. She didn't understand how, but that is how it worked, she was probably just reading what she wanted to read from it anyways. It's all in your mind, she thought with a grin. With a little mental effort she started her quest. She liked easy money, and this was the easiest kind.

[Sam Spaid]

Easy of course was a relative term. It was August in LA and that meant the mercury was topping one hundred degrees easily. Even with the windows down her little car was still adding a couple extra degrees to that purely from radiant heat out of the engine. For five hours Sam drove about in her little hot-box car and followed the inexplicable pull of her psychic sense. As she approached her quarry she began to feel glad for the extra firepower she carried. These neighborhoods were less than safe. Not the outright gang ruled wastelands that some might picture, but there were more than a few drug dealers and prostitutes out in broad daylight. If it weren't for the guns and the fact that she kept moving, rolling through stops most of the time, Sam would have felt very uncomfortable. Instead she was just mildly antsy as she closed in on her target.

At last she was certain of his location, at least at the street level. An old hotel, rundown, and abused. The kind that offered "hourly rates" and looked like it was only a few years from becoming a crack house. Which annoyed her because she couldn't be certain if Billy Smythe would still be there in an hour. Finding him didn't mean finding where he was staying. Which would have been harder by far. Easy to find a person. Easy to find an object that is unique. Easier still to find something you are personally familiar with. Finding a stranger's hotel when they may not be there was orders of magnitude more difficult. She suppressed an irritated sigh and parked at the end of the street, within viewing range, and hopefully away from any potential pushers, peddlers, or perverts. Then she rolled the windows to within an inch from the top and cursed at the heat.

Sam debated with herself for ten minutes before the heat helped to make her case to herself for calling the client. Her phone came out and she retrieved the sheet of paper with his information from her jacket. She made a face, it was damp and warm from being held close to her. "Gross," she muttered as she dialed the man's number.

"Hello?"

Sam blinked, the voice on the other end sounded like Mr. Smythe's but there was a quality about it, a hard edge, and a relaxing of the heavy accent that gave his voice a wholly different character. "Mr. Smythe?" she asked, affecting that she hadn't noticed the difference, many wouldn't have. "It's Samantha Spaid, I've found where your boy is, or at least where he is at the moment. I can;t say if he'll be there for long or not."

"Oh, hello Miz Spayd," he drawled, the accent suddenly back in full force. "Well I reckon tha' there was fasser than I 'spected. W'are's mah boy at? Ah'll go an' git 'im myself."

"He's currently in a shady hotel. The address is," she leaned over to double check the street name and the building number, and then gave them to the man. "It's called the," he paused, snorting a laugh, "It's called The Alhambra, which is not indicative of its appearance or locale. Would you like me to wait and follow him if he leaves?" After a beat she added, "That will also save you a trip to my office." Sam wasn't willing for forget the matter of an extra five hundred dollars, even if it was a little crass to go about it in such a manner.

"Ah thank ya, but no need, Ah'll be by this afternoon ta drop off tha bonus Ah promised ya." He seemed to hesitate, "Ah mus' say Miz Spayd, Ah am rightly impressed by how quick ya tracked ma boy down wit' so little info-ma-shun. I's fairly well impressive, darn near supernatural."

Sam blinked, Did he just tell me he knows what I did?

"Hullo? Miz Spayd?"

"Yes, sorry, thank you. I have a knack for knowing where to go and whom to talk to. And finding ... is a specialty." Sam wondered if this was more than what it seemed. "I'll see you later this afternoon Mr. Smythe."

"Thank ya kindly. Ah'll be by wit' tha res' o' your pay."

"OK, thank you, I'll see you then." Sam hung up and started the car, the blowers slapping her face with hot stagnant air.

[jameson] 8:17 am: Wits 3 + Occult 2 (Psychic Powers) = 6 dice

jameson *rolls* 6d10: 10+6+4+4+5+5: 34

jameson *rolls* 1d10: 7: 7

jameson *rolls* 6d10: 5+9+1+10+10+2: 37

jameson *rolls* 2d10: 2+7: 9

jameson *rolls* 6d10: 10+6+5+3+7+6: 37

jameson *rolls* 1d10: 10: 10

jameson *rolls* 1d10: 5: 5

[jameson] 8:19 am: 6 sux in 3 hours

jameson *rolls* 6d10: 8+1+10+7+9+4: 39

jameson *rolls* 1d10: 7: 7

jameson *rolls* 6d10: 7+1+6+5+1+10: 30

jameson *rolls* 1d10: 3: 3

[jameson] 8:19 am: 10 sux in 5 hours

[Sam Spaid]

Craning her head over her left shoulder Sam prepared to pull out into the road. She hesitated, then looked back at the hotel. With a shake of her head she dismissed the gut feeling she had that there was more to see here. Pulling out into the street she headed back to her office to wait for Mr. Smythe and another $500. At the end of the block she stopped for the light, having just missed the green. She didn't dare roll the windows down until she was moving again; moving away from this neighborhood. The vents disgorged hot air and Sam imagined that this is what a pie felt like in those fancy convection ovens they talked about on the food network. Sighing she wiped the sweat from her forehead and glanced into the rear-view mirror.

Out of the hotel a pair of men, very conspicuously white, moved down the stairs. Sam frowned and adjusted the rear-view mirror. "Son. Of. A..." She watched as father and son headed down the sidewalk, away from her, before realizing that the light had gone green. Something bigger was at work here. She cursed again and jammed her little foot into a gas sending the car into a sputtering lurch. The compact ate up pavement as fast as traffic would allow on the way back to Sam's office, trailing a stream of largely PG curses honed over years of motherhood.

[Sam Spaid]

Being native to the city and not needing to follow a psychic trail meant that Sam was back to her office in just under an hour. Not being native to the city and needing to follow directions from dubious sources like MapQuest meant that Mr. Smythe and his son didn't show up for nearly two hours. Sam was watching out her window when they arrived. She saw two people in the car, though only Mr. Smythe, if that was even his name, got out and walked toward the building. His son, and she was certain they were father and son, stayed in the car; odd given that he had purportedly run away previously.

The knock on her door came moments later and Sam, already standing by, opened it. "Oh! Mr. Smythe, good to see you." Sam affected a demeanor less irritated than her true feelings. "Is your son OK? Were you able to get him at the hotel?" She looked behind him into the hall, "He's alright I hope?"

"He sure is. Ah was able tah git tha boy and drop 'im off afore comin' here tah give ya tha res' ah your money." He pulled out a wallet and removed five hundreds from it, handing them to Sam. "Ah appreciate your swiftness, Ah wuz told you were fast, an' you were."

Sam took the money. she may well have been irritated at being lied to, but money way money. "Mr. Smythe," she said, about to call him out.

"Yes'm?"

"Nevermind. Glad I could reunite you with your son."

"Ah thank ya kindly, Miz Spayd. Ah'll call on ya again if Ah need ya."

Sam offered a questioning smile, tinged with amusement, "Do you plan on losing your son again Mr. Smythe?"

"No ma'am, but Ah may need talents like you have ta find some ... thing else." He smiled, "Ah good day tah you." He turned and walked away down the hall to the stairs leaving Sam wondering just what that meant, and just how much about her he had learned via this apparent test. If it were not for the thousand dollars in her purse for a day's work she might have followed him out, demanded answers, or even tailed him to wherever he was staying, or living. Instead Sam turned out the lights and locked up. It was early enough that she would be home in time to make something special for dinner, assuming her father hadn't taken Timmy out to dinner. She pulled her cell phone out as she headed to her car.