ArchivedLogs:Business Time

Business Time
Dramatis Personae Cage, Toru	2013-10-18 Cage and Toru talk some shop.
Location <NYC> Heroes For Hire - Midtown East
Cage is working late on a Friday night. He's in a gray suit, with a pale yellow dress shirt, and a well-loosened black neck tie. Anyone following his campaign closely might be aware that he's supposed to speak at a campaign rally the next day, and it would seem that he's going over some notes. He's pacing in his office, flipping through a stack of note cards. Additionally, even at 10:30 pm, his secretary Janice is still on the job, ticking away at her keyboard in the front room. Perhaps surprisingly, given the hour, with very little preamble other than the sound of footsteps outside, the door abruptly opens and in strides Toru. In black opera gloves, a blue hoodie and khaki cargo pants, he's dressed for the chilly weather, at least. A ballcap is shoved into the back pocket of those pants, and he's got a messenger bag over his shoulder. "Yo, Cage!" Wasting little to no time as he makes his way in, he shoots Janice a wink and a finger-gun, before turning his attention back to the fledgeling politician. "Trib says you gotta job for me. Gave me the rundown but I dunno if he had all the details so I figured I should just come right to you. What's up?" Luke jumps when the door bangs open, and 3x5 note cards flutter onto the floor around his feet. He walks over to his office door to see Toru come in, and backs up when the youth is already on his way through. He shoots Janice a glance, but she is pointedly staring at something on her screen. "Thanks," he tells her flatly. She doesn't look up, but she does give him the finger before returning to her work. "Hey Bones, I'm glad you came by." Luke crosses over to his desk, removing his jacket on the way, and tosses it over the back of his chair. Then he scoops up a manila folder off his desk - the kind secret dossiers always come in, in the movies. Luke takes a brief moment to regard the youth, until he nods, apparently willing to go along with the 'lets never speak of that other thing, ever again' tactic. It's probably best for all parties. "Don't waste much time, do ya? Did he tell you it was a paying gig, too?" Eyebrows widen a bit as the teen follows Luke to the back office, pulling up one of the chairs, though flipping it around so that he's got his front leaning against the back of it. "He didn't say nothin' about /money/, now I might actually do it," he remarks, with some amusement. Once he's settled into the chair, he just sort of quietly oozes into it, letting his head drop over the edge and letting out a little yawn before continuing. "He said somethin' about you wantin' me to poke around some school or somethin', but I think you might be lookin' at it the wrong way unless there's somethin' else he didn't mention. I ain't so sure I'm your guy for a 21 Jump Street thing. But, y'know, gimme yer sales pitch." "Yeah, it's contractor pay," Luke says, nodding. "I could hear the 'take this job and shove it' in your voice when you came in. Figured I should open with that." Whatever lug-head image Luke likes to portray himself as, he is certainly a shrewd reader of people. "And anyway, we ain't cops. Jump Street was cops. I'm a PI, asking you to look into something. Fully legit and legal, by the way." Luke shrugs, and holds out the folder for Toru to take. "So, this is all culled from the reports, and a couple of police files which can't leave with you, surrounding the investigation into how that kid got hurt in the first place. My gut says, if we dig deep enough, get someone to talk, we can expose this as a hate crime. Mutants aren't listed under the hate crime laws yet, but this would help a /lot/ of people, if we make some progress here." Cage turns again and rummages around on his desk, before coming up with a small electronic device. "This is for recording your conversations. Just keep it in a pocket, don't wrap your hand around it, and we'll get good audio." He holds up a flat hand anticipating a question. "So, why you? Because you can pass for human, no one's ever seen you with me, and you look young. Could be someone's older brother or something. Just hang around the school and see what bubbles to the surface. You get paid if you hear something or not, but a convicting conversation on the recorder... Well, let's just say you'd receive proper rewards." Toru takes the folder, really just sort of mindlessly flipping through it at the moment - he's turning pages, but he isn't really /absorbing/ anything. He does not take the recorder, instead holding a hand up to reject it for the moment. "Hey now, I ain't agreed to nothin' yet, I just said I'd listen." If nothing else, the teen does actually seem to be paying attention despite his gaze being on the folder - maybe he just needs something to focus his eyes on. Once Cage does stop talking, Toru is quiet for a moment, actually lingering on one page of the report, before he finally closes the folder again - notably still holding on to it - and looks up at the older man. "Thing is like-- somethin' like this, I dunno if anybody's gonna talk to some guy, and I don't even know how I'd fuggin' /breach/ that. Like, 'hey guys, you ain't never seen me before but let's talk about that murder you did last week', y'know? But it's like I was tellin' Trib..." Leaning back, he takes a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh. "These're a bunch of highschool dumbasses who're probably prouda what they did, odds are if you hire yourself a nerd you can dig up their shit on like fucking Twitter or Instagram or whatever they're using nowadays. I mean, I'll go by the school if you got some kinda angle for me to follow, but I dunno how successful this's gonna be." Luke nods, leaning back against his desk, half-standing. "Yeah, I get where you're coming from. In my day, kids'd be chomping at the bit just to tell someone. The problem is, I don't know how any of that new shit works, I don't /know/ any 'nerds', and anyway, I'm still pretty sure kids this young are inheriting their hate. I'm guessing they're loud and proud, even without the internet. The 'my dad versus your dad' kinda bullshit. And you're right, they'll be busting with pride, because that's the only thing that'll drown out the gnawing, soul-wrenching guilt." Luke grinds his teeth, halting his sudden dark turn, and looks out the window for a minute. "We just need someone in the neighborhood. Maybe play the new kid card over at the Boys and Girls Club. I pay a day rate, so if it takes a long time, you get paid more." "Sure, yeah, somethin' like that." Toru holds the folder up to Cage, shaking his head a few times. "I mean, 's long as you don't care it'll probably take a while with me workin' and all, yeah, I'll do it for a few days at least. I mean, what kinda day rate we lookin' at?" There's a bit of a grin there, though he really doesn't seem to be too concerned about the figure. "Anyway I ain't gonna look through this too much 'cause if I go in and start talkin' about shit in there I'm gonna sound like a narc." If Luke doesn't take the folder, Toru will set it on the desk, but either way he's freeing up his hands to wrap them around the back of the chair again. "So what I'm basically just tryin' to figure out who did it and why, yeah? This wasn't in the Bronx, was it? I went to school up there, it could look weird me showin' back up." Luke nods for Toru to just toss the dossier onto his desk and crosses to get a bottle of water from his mini-fridge. He offers one to Toru as well, and hands it to the young man if he wants one. Cage quotes a fairly livable wage to Toru, and then says, "If you want checks, you can fill out a 1099 with Janice. If you want cash, we can do it that way too. Either is fine by me. And no, the school is in Harlem. One of the big public schools in District 9. I'm glad to have you with me on this, Bones." Cage steps forward and offers to shake hands, while adding, "Oh, and if you know any /trustworthy/ computer nerds, feel free to send them my way, but don't elaborate on the job. I wanna vet them myself." Toru is on his way up to his feet by the time Cage offers him the water bottle, but he accepts it eagerly enough, going so far as to open it and chug a good half of it before laying off. He puts the lid back on, cramming the remainder into one of his pockets, and just sort of nods a few times at the offer. "Cash is usually good by me. Keep the man off my back and all." Another nod, there. "So, uh, you gonna want me to check in with you before I head over there or am I on my own from here out? I figure I'll start on Monday. Like some kinda real job." He starts to head out of the office, despite the question going unanswered, and runs a hand over his hair before he pauses, turning around suddenly. "Anyway dude /I'm/ barely trustworthy. Send Trib a text with the deets, I am pretty much dead on my feet, I just got off work, man." He gives a vague little wave of the hand as he heads back out of the building, with as little fanfare as his entrance.