Tough Love

"Peanut?"

"I don't like it. Not one fuckin' bit."

Rude snorted. "See if I ever offer you anything again."

"Not that, you ass," I snapped, "this job. I don't like it. Tseng's in there by himself without a wire or a gun, and we're sitting out here like a couple of idiots with our thumbs up our butts. I don't like it."

"You should try not sitting on your hand."

I scowled and shot him a dark glare which he predictably ignored as he cracked a peanut shell open with his teeth and popped the contents into his mouth. "You saw them frisk him at the door," he said in mid-chew. "What was he supposed to do?"

"Exactly," I said, turning in the passenger seat to face him better. "You don't just walk into any fucking materia shop and automatically get patted down. What if this Salamander asshole tries to pull something? And I'm not talking a con. I mean something bigger—a gun. This ain't even his shop, he'd have no problem messing up the place. And Tseng's not exactly the lowest-profile character on the planet, you know. He could be recognized."

"And so if he is," Rude reasoned, "then this Salamander guy will just pull out. Tseng's not gonna try anything alone in there, he'll let him go. And if the Salamander tries any cons, that's what we're here for, to make sure he doesn't get too far."

"I dunno, man. I smell a rat."

"That's just your breath."

Cracking my window open, I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out in one, long hiss. "You're not worried at all?"

"You know, Reno, some days you still act like a goddamned rookie. Not every job is includes an assassination attempt or a conspiracy plot. Sometimes a deal is just a deal. Now you want a fuckin' peanut, or not?"

"No, I don't want a peanut," I groused, waving his hand away irritably. I sank lower into the cushiony sedan seat and listened to him crack a few shells with his teeth for a moment. "What are you eating those things for anyway?"

"I'm hungry," he replied laconically.

"I want a taco," I announced. "You should buy me a taco when we're through here. You owe me after fucking up my shirt."

Rolling his eyes behind his glasses, he sighed. "Fine. I'll buy you a taco when we're done. Now could you just shut up for ten whole minutes? You're giving me a headache."

Should have been me. I didn't say it out loud, but as I sat there frowning and feeling generally pissy about this whole mission, I couldn't help but think that it should have been me putting my ass out on the line in there, not Tseng. Tseng had been with the Turks for...well, I wasn't really sure, but I knew it had been long enough for him to have established himself as a rather prominent figurehead. Body-guarding for Rufus Shinra and his father sure hadn't kept him very anonymous. Knowing that Tseng personally didn't even buy into any of this materia bullshit made me even angrier that he was willing to risk his neck for it. If I thought I could have argued with him about it without getting my ass kicked into my throat, I would have. Instead, I was sitting in the company-owned sedan listening to my partner crack peanut shells with his teeth. I felt about as useful as Rude's shampoo.

Just as I finished off my cigarette and flicked the butt out the window, a slick little sports car pulled around the corner and parallel parked across the street from the materia shop Tseng had gone in to about a half-hour before. Nice car. Kind of reminded me of Tseng's car, in fact, except this one was dark green and had a dent in the hood. I fixed my eyes to the car and knew Rude was doing the same. "You suppose that's him?" I asked.

"Car like that in a 'hood like this? Prob'ly."

"He's late."

We watched as both driver and passenger-side doors winged open on the car and I eagerly anticipated catching a glimpse of this notorious 'Salamander.' I had the incongruent idea of seeing a man with 'beady eyes,' a 'blunt nose' and a 'sharp tongue' and nearly snickered out loud at the thought. What I did finally see was not some roly-poly looking freak, but instead a solidly built younger man, fairly tall (though not quite as tall as Rude), dressed in a cheap polyester suit and sporting an average 10-gil haircut. He had a buddy with him: a rat-faced, nervous-looking kid with crooked teeth and beaky nose. I wondered briefly if he'd ever actually been able to see his own reflection at any point in his life, or if his image had simply shattered every mirror he tried to glimpse into.

The little guy looked oddly familiar in a way I couldn't put my finger on. I say little, but he wasn't much smaller than me, really. The bigger guy looked kind of familiar too... The smaller guy carried the briefcase. I frowned as my Bad Feeling slowly rose to This Is Not Good. "Do you recognize either of 'em?"

"Nope."

"Shit. I could swear I've seen them before..."

The two exchanged words for a moment as they stood in front of the car, the smaller one's eyes darting around nervously, his head jerking around with the exaggerated movement of his eyes. He turned his head just enough to the side and it allowed me to see another unusual characteristic: he had a band-aid covering his left ear. Weird place to cut yourself shaving, dude...

The tall guy casually twirled a brass key ring around his finger for a moment as they continued to talk, and for some reason, I couldn't take my eyes off that key chain. It was gaudy and glinted slightly in the catchlights and I found it tacky as hell, but beyond that, the shape of it was completely mesmerizing.

Three big block letters. B-V-something, maybe. No...an S and maaaayyyybe a P... Salamander. Sal...a...mander. S-A-L? Sal?

SAL!!!

"Oh shit!" I cursed, rocketing forward in the seat and nearly launching myself out the windshield as I grabbed the binoculars on the dashboard and jammed them to my eyes. Upon a closer look, I realized I was looking at the same two guys Tseng and I had grappled with in the parking lot the night before. My This Is Not Good feeling skipped right over my Oh-No feeling and went straight to my Can I Have Some New Underwear, Please feeling.

The communication between my brain and mouth suddenly shut down and I began to babble excitedly to Rude as the two men began to walk across the street. "Damn! Guys...fight...Sal...Tseng!!!" I went on for a moment throwing up random words and sentences that made no sense, and Rude was trying to calm me down as best he could.

"Fight? What fight? Reno, what it is? You recognize those two? Where do you know them? What's this have to do with Tseng? Reno, for Christ's sake CALM DOWN!"

I fumbled for my handgun resting against the small of my back and loaded the first bullet in the chamber. "This is bad, real, real bad. Tseng and I ran into those two guys last night and fucked them up pretty good--"

"You and Tseng? I thought you said you got in that fight alone--"

"--one look at Tseng and they're gonna recognize him right off, maybe not as a Turk, but definitely not someone they're gonna wanna do business with--"

"Reno--"

"--gonna kill him as soon as they see him; Tseng has no idea!"

"Reno, tell me what is going on, RIGHT NOW," Rude demanded, gripping my arm firmly.

I stopped long enough to try and string a thought together, and all I could think of was that I had to get out of that car as soon as possible. "Rude...?" I said so calmly, I even surprised myself. "Let...me...go."

It couldn't have been more than three seconds that he hesitated, but those three seconds seemed to last infinitely as time distorted and blurred everything around us. I felt my heart pound in my chest and sweat stand out on my brow as I watched the gap between the Salamander and his buddy and the shop's front door close within the space of a few feet.

Whatever Rude had heard in my voice, whether it had been anger, sheer panic, or just the complete lack of anything else, it must've finally sunk in. "Let's go." I would have kissed him full on the mouth right there for those two words if I thought I had the time.


* * *


"You're the Salamander..."

It was Tseng's remarkably controlled voice on the other side of the shop door, and I'm guessing it hadn't taken long for Sal to recognize Tseng at all. It's not every day you get a nine-millimeter shoved up your nose, and it's not likely you'd forget the person who did it real quick, either.

"Let’s go, Sal, let's just get outta here."

The squirrelly guy. Butch, if I recall. The thought of their names still made me want to laugh at them, but then I'm supposing 'Reno' and 'Rude' aren't the most normal names to wander upon every day either. Butch sounded nervous, in any case. Perhaps he'd developed a sudden overnight fear of being randomly jumped on and bitten, who could tell?

"No way," said a third voice, the slow, heavy baritone and thick city accent obviously belonging to Sal, himself. "That car cost me eight-five grand. It's gonna cost me another two grand t'get the hood replaced. Plus, this motherfucker's little drinkin' friend bit you, which is just plain ornery. You think I'm gonna let him go now after all that, you're as crazy as he is. Grab his case."

I covered one side of the door and kept my ear pressed to it as Rude motioned for me to stay put. For the moment I had to agree with his decision, much as I wanted to get in there. So far Tseng sounded like his was still in one piece though, and I rather would've liked to keep him that way.

I heard a break in the conversation and then a soft whistle of appreciation following the sound of the locks on the briefcase clicking open. "It all in there?"

"Well, I dunno Sal, I'm not really gonna sit down and take the time to count it all out, but it's a briefcase full of a lotta fuckin' money and that's good enough for me."

"No need to be a smartass, Butch."

"Yeah, well don't you be a dumbass, Sal. We got the money and the materia now, let's just get outta here."

Sal seemed to debate this over for some time, as I didn't hear anything at all for a moment or two. At least I hoped he was just debating and I hadn't missed something else. But the door was made of the cheapest building material just shy of cardboard and there wasn't a lot I couldn't hear through it. In fact, the entire building structure of the slums is about as sturdy as a wet paper towel. One big sneeze and it'd take out half the block. At that moment, I'd never been more grateful for paper-thin walls.

"He's right Sal..." Tseng again. I was relieved to hear his voice, but his tone was low, calm and dangerous. It gave me a familiar chill, and at that moment, I didn't envy Sal one bit. "You can walk out of here with both the money and the materia. I'm unarmed. You've won Sal. There's nothing I can do-- right now--to stop you."

"I didn't ask you to start talkin'."

"But...once you walk through that door, I can't promise anything. I'm not a person who likes to loose, Sal. And for both my own interest and in the interest of my employer, it would be best if I walked out of here with at least one of those cases."

"Your employer? You with Shin-Ra???"

"Who I work for is irrelevant. Point of the matter is we had a deal, a deal that you're about to break, and I don't like being cheated. Now...I would rather you come back in here, sit down and let's negotiate this like honest crooks. I'll even throw in a little extra for all your troubles. Or, you leave right now...and I won't make any promises."

How anyone completely unarmed and without a single card to play had big enough balls to threaten someone else when the odds were against them was nothing short of amazing. Or stupid! I gnashed my molars together angrily wanting to walk in there, push right past anyone else in the way, take Tseng by the shoulders and shake him until his neck snapped. But I also know you don't get to be head Turk by always playing it safe.

"He's bluffin'." Butch didn't sound very confident. Again, complete silence followed and dragged on. I glanced over at Rude again and gave him an impatient eyeroll, and he motioned once again with his hand for me to be still. In reality I knew Tseng probably had way more control of the situation than I had cause for concern, but that didn't mean I enjoyed standing there enduring the sensation of sweat trickle down my spine, feeling as though every muscle in my body could rip through my skin at any moment if the slightest thing provoked me.

"You're right."

Sal had apparently made up his mind. Now maybe he'd let us in on the decision.

"Let's go..."

Ah, good choice, Sal. Maybe not for you, but at least I'd be getting a much-needed work out. All this standing around was making me antsy.

Rude and I made eye contact once again verifying we were each on our mark. Pressing up farther against the outside wall, the door swung open inward, and I stepped around the corner to come nearly nose-to-nose with Butch. Shoving the barrel of my gun against his Adam's apple, his eyeballs seemed to want to spring from their sockets. I gave him a wide, toothy grin and the best greeting I could think of:

"Woof."