[the grim encounters office]

[murphy_pendleton]

It's always pretty quite between investigations for Murphy. It's not as if there isn't anything for the team to do - it's just that the research-and-seek-permits chunks of work aren't remotely his area of expertise. And since Caroline's been around to help he's had even less paperwork hell to help slog through, thankfully. She's much better at it than he ever was. He's taken to just hanging out in the office regardless, whenever he's not busy with some side job. (Which is, unfortunately, fairly often.)

It's just especially empty in the office this afternoon. Crane had been in earlier but had stepped out, leaving just Pendleton and Lichfield for the time being. Murphy checks on the plants and answers the phone when needed - theoretically, at least. They don't get many calls and they don't have many plants, so that's not a lot to keep him busy. And while Lichfield's busy in other parts of the office that's not something she needs his help with, really. So he pulls a chair up to one of the windows overlooking the street below and settles on playing games on his phone over the shitty wifi. It's a good place to keep an eye on things. Maybe people watch a little, but not conspicuously. Pendleton's very aware of the exact kind of neighborhood they're in. It's rough. Not the worst, but rough. Mafia turf, probably. The restaurant nearby certainly is mob-owned, judging by the types that frequent it. What particular capital-F mob family doesn't really concern him.

He pays just enough attention to make sure nothing bad is headed their way. The less he knows, the better, really.

It's still early afternoon when he spies an especially nice shiny black sedan pull up near their building. That's not really all that unusual - mob neighborhood, and all. Murphy pays it very little mind. He's got a Candy Crush level he's been stuck on for hours now. He only becomes aware of someone in the hallway just before the office door swings open. 

That's a very tall handsome stranger walking in and Murphy is absolutely certain he's a mob guy. Tan skin, hawkish Italian nose, carefully slicked back black hair, nice shirt and slacks, shiny leather shoes. Really fuckin' shiny shoes. Yeah. Mafia. Probably a made guy doing well for himself, from the outfit. He's got a box tucked under an arm. Murphy discreetly texts Lichfield. caroline we got a mob guy here, if he wants to break my legs im gonna let him. Message sent.

Mr. Mafia glances around at the empty office and empty front desk before Murphy pipes up from his corner. "Hi, can I help you?"

There's a long, awkward pause while the stranger here stares down his very large nose at Murph, looking bemused. "I fuckin' hope so. Is Dr. Crane in?" He sounds good-natured about it.

"Nah, but he said he'd be back later," Murphy answers, entirely unhelpfully, he knows. "He didn't say when though." Or say anything about meeting with anyone - thanks, Crane. He continues to text Caroline, barely looking at his phone. im the worst secretary r.i.p.

Mr. Mafia chews on that for a moment. "Well. Shit," He says, closing the door behind him. "Mind if I wait?" Murphy shrugs in a nonchalant 'go ahead' kind of way - it's not like he's gonna refuse this guy. De Niro Jr, for his part, wanders over to the front desk and sets the mystery box there before taking a seat. "I brought some donuts and cannnoli," He adds after a moment. He must have noticed Murphy's squinting at it. "I didn't know if you guys" -- that was almost a 'yous guys' -- "-liked cannoli so I hedged my bets, y'know?"

"Uh...Thanks." Murphy feels stupid. He tires very hard to salvage whatever this is. "Nobody here's going to turn down pastries." Ha ha. Fuck. That's no better. This is hilariously awkward, especially for a mob run-in. This guy has the air of being important to him, but Murphy has no idea who the hell he is. And this guy knows it, too. Murphy shoots off one last text to Lichfield. baby michael corleone brought us cannoli! and donuts. get out here already if you want some because im going to eat it all before he kills me. 

Comments

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline's in the back wrestling with ancient office equipment when her phone chirps at her. Once she gets the permits copying she takes a look, and it's... Murphy? He's out front, but okay. Scratch that. He's out front with uh, company. Well. It is Gotham. It's probably more surprising that she hasn't actually seen or heard of anybody coming by for payments until now.

sounds kinky. be out in a minute.

Hopefully whoever it is out there is friendly. Murphy doesn't sound too worried though. Caroline gets sidetracked throwing out half the copied permits because they turned out all smudged again. For fuck's sake. Her phone dings again.

She laughs at the text, but doesn't reply. The copier is now mostly cooperating and she has to collate as it spits papers out. It's a really old, creaky copier. Once she gets everything ordered properly, she goes through and sticks some post-its on where things need signing or some other kind of attention. Then she paperclips the stacks and shoves them in a folder. There. Now she can go see about this guy Murphy's been dealing with out front.

Oh hey. Another text.

cannoli AND kinky shit??? hot damn omw

Caroline makes her way out to the front desk and-- yup, that is fully a mob guy. A good-looking mob guy who brought them food. Nice. He's sitting patiently in front of the desk while Murphy's still hanging out by the window. It's a little awkward out here. Murphy, you really are the worst secretary.

"Good afternoon," Caroline says as she makes her way over to the desk. She's polite and upbeat, but not full on customer service overly cheerful. "I'm guessing you're waiting for Doctor Crane? He should be back soon, but I can send him a quick text."

Now that she's had a chance to look, Caroline's about half sure she should recognize this guy from somewhere. He looks familiar, but not like she's met him. Hmm. She pulls out her phone to start texting Crane to hurry up, there's a guy here waiting for him when it dawns on her.

This guy can't be here for a standing arrangement. Crane would know to be here, or tell her or Murphy what to do. And while this guy could be here to start something like that, it... really doesn't feel like that to Caroline. It's kind of what the evidence is pointing to at the moment, but her gut says otherwise. Of course, they do have another guy wanting to be a guest on the show so maybe it's one of his-- ahaha, fuck. That's not one of Sionis's handlers or his lawyer or whatever. That's Roman Sionis.

Roman Sionis who's been sitting here patiently with pastries while Murphy continues to have no idea who he is. That's incredible. Caroline hopes she hasn't been making too many faces just now. How the hell do you gracefully sidestep the fact that you didn't recognize a famous person? "So um, can I get you anything Mister Sionis?" That's polite, right?

Also, she kind of wants to see Murphy's head explode.

[roman_sionis]

These chairs are godawful. Worse than DMV godawful. Roman settles into one as best he can, but already can feel at least one of his legs is going to fall asleep. Is it too early to offer to get them better chairs? He'll chew on that for a moment. He'd straight up ask Murphy there, the cameraman still sitting awkwardly off to the corner, except... Murphy doesn't have a goddamn clue who he is. He's not even how that's possible in this city.

It took a little while for Roman to figure that out. At first, he was pretty sure this guy had like, balls of absolute steel, but it became pretty quickly apparent that it's just cluelessness. Roman hasn't even formulated a way to respond to that by the time the intern shows up. She's tinier than he expected - hell, smaller than Murphy, and Roman was already surprised by how little that guy was in person. It feels a little odd, even to Roman, to already know them by name even if he does watch the show.

"Yeah, that'd be great," Roman answers with a small half-shrug. He could have made some kind of appointment. Should have, probably.

He reclines in the awful plastic chair - it squeaks alarmingly - while he waits for Lichfield to text Crane. She pauses and slowly looks back up to Roman. There's an amazing if subtle array of emotions that cross her face, and then - ah. Recognition. Roman barely surpresses a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. "No, I'm fine."

Across the room, Murphy throws his phone. "Son of a bitch!"

Roman breaks and cackles loudly at that. "Who did you think I was?"

"I dunno," Murphy says, "Maybe you were here to read the meter."

"Your meter reader guy routinely bring you cannoli?" Roman asks, shifting in his seat to lean forward. "I need a new meter reader, I guess." He takes a deliberately long pause, stares off wistfully at the window, and then continues in his best pseudo Bruce Wayne voice, "What's a meter reader even do?"

[sweet_caroline]

Yup, Murphy threw his phone. That's great. Sionis cackling is also great. Caroline can't help laughing along with him. She's probably a little less cackle-y. Probably. She looks back down at her phone long enough to actually send Crane a text.

Sionis is here to talk to you. Hope you're almost done.

Caroline sets her phone down on the desk and is just about to go for a cannoli when Sionis busts out a pretty good Bruce Wayne impression. She snorts. "I think you mean--" she pauses to adopt a properly vacant Waynelike expression-- "how do you even read meat?"

Okay, now she reaches for one of the cannoli. They look damn good.

[roman_sionis]

"That's pretty good," Roman laughs and waggles a finger in Lichfield's direction approvingly.

"Too good," Murphy adds. "I'm starting to get flashbacks of camera's falling." The short cameraman finally moves from his spot in the corner to wander over to the reception desk. He leans against it and reaches for one of the cannoli also. Good. He'll ask them about getting better chairs sometime later, probably. Better to space out the, uh.... buttering up.

Roman winces a little in sympathy. "Yeah, I bet." It had been painful to watch - if also hilarious. Any time Wayne manages to humiliate himself is always, always hilarious. Not something he's going to mention to Murphy here, though. 'I thought it was a hoot when your expensive equipment got destroyed' might just torpedo his chances to actually get on the show entirely.

[sweet_caroline]

The cannoli are damn good. Though really, if a rich as fuck Italian guy can't find good cannoli, there's something wrong. Caroline makes a small appreciate noise in spite of herself. It's really good, okay.

Her phone dings. She glances down and catches part of Crane's reply on her lockscreen notification. Aha. "Well, I'm sure you'll be really shocked to hear that Doctor Crane is now on his way." The half a text she saw didn't look frazzled, really, but that's not Crane's style.

"So," Caroline continues after a moment, "what made you want to come on Grim Encounters?" She's wondering if it's going to be some kind of rich person trend, now that Wayne's been on. ...She's also wondering if it's rude to have a second cannoli already. Goddamn.

[roman_sionis]

If Roman was anyone else, he might have called ahead, made an appointment, or just... sent a gopher to do it for him. But that's not his style. "Should I start a timer to see how long it takes him?" He glances meaningfully at his watch, and notes the time anyway. Wonder if Crane's teaching himself to fly?

"Oh, y'know... it was either this or the morning news folks, maybe some kind of cooking segment," Roman says thoughtfully, nodding to himself. "Nah, I like spooky shit. I like spooky shit a lot. Thought gettin' myself on the local ghost hunting show sounded like fun. What about you? What made you want to work for Grim Encounters?"

He stands and leans over to pluck one of the donuts from the box. He brought 'em, why not? And there's plenty left. He drops back into his seat, and the shitty plastic chair wobbles and squeaks ominously.

"Jesus Christ, my life flashed in front of my eyes," He breathes, equal parts alarmed and amused. Once he's sure the chair isn't liable to give out, he relaxes. It's fine. He didn't land on his ass like a schmuck. Meanwhile, Murphy quietly shoves a cannoli in his own mouth then vanishes back further into the offices.

[sweet_caroline]

"He'll probably only break a few traffic laws getting back," Caroline says agreeably. Crane's more likely to be annoyed than frantic, but not enough to take his time on principle. Not this time anyway.

"What, not the weather?" She asks, laughing. ...You know what, that's a big box of pastries. She'll just wait for Sionis to get his donut and sit back-- she winces at the chair's agonized screech. Whew. That was a near disaster.

Sionis is a good sport about it, at least. "I think Murphy's did, too." Murphy, who just disappeared into the back. Caroline takes the opportunity to grab a second cannoli. The donuts look good too, but she has an easier time finding donuts she likes than decent cannoli.

[roman_sionis]

"Too passe. That's what all the social climbers are doing lately." Roman waves his hand dismissively. As if all the new money socialites in Gotham were fighting to flail stupidly with the weatherman. Sure.

"No doubt. I saw the fear of God in his eyes," He says knowingly. He's sure somewhere out there, their lawyer felt that too. Roman doesn't think falling out of a chair would have been the end of the world, but he doesn't much blame them - it's not like he's going to sue them. But they don't know that. And the fear's funny, so he's not about to tell them, either.

He can hear some kind of rustling around further across the office. Rattling around he can't identify. "So, you never did answer my question." He pauses a beat to take a bite of his donut. Maybe he should have brought some coffee, too. "What made you want to intern for a bunch of ghost hunters?"

[sweet_caroline]

What's Murphy doing back there? Is that... it might be the sound of one of the office chairs rolling around. Hard to tell though. Whatever.

"Actually," Caroline says in between bites of cannoli, "my answer's the same as yours. I was excited to see we had a local ghost hunting show, so when I realized how often they were looking for interns... well." She shrugs. "Figured I couldn't be worse than that poor kid who screamed in a basement the whole time." Not to mention the guy who rendered an entire episode unusable due to a fire, of all things. But she's not sure that's known to anybody not on the crew.

Hmm. You know what pastries and chatting need? Coffee. Which is always on hand at the Grim Encounters office. "Would you care for some coffee, Mister Sionis? I'm going to get myself a cup." She sets the rest of her cannoli down and stands.