Electro Swing by BlueBerryOatmeal

Bad To The Bone, Sick As A Dog (part 3)

Summary:

Someone touching his things was never something Bill took lightly. Stealing from him was an entirely separate offense, one he'd retaliate with bloodshed.

[More Crime Drama goodness where Bill robs a Casino. Set against a film-noir 1940's backdrop. Written for binge reading.]
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They sat in silence, a small group of bodies piled shoulder to should around the single back booth of the closed bar. No one dared breath, afraid to test the lingering tension that floated about the air like heavy smoke. The lights had been shut off for the night, the blinds to the street closed. What light did shine through the small bar did a fine job of hiding facial expressions, masking both fearful looks and impatient glances. Little features were cast more in the highlight of the light above the bar as it flickered. Its bright purple hue streaking the walls in a flurry of odd shadows.

At the head of the table, leaning deep into the high cushioned seat, sat a man with an unreadable expression and steady gaze from one single eye. The other was covered in a thick black eye-patch, a wide piece of leather that hide the skin from eyebrow to cheek bone. It still did little to cover up the puckered skin underneath and long spider webbed scars could be seen reaching out from the corners. He had barely moved a muscle as the table filled in around him, and he said nothing as the minutes passed slowly. While the table exchanged glances, no one wanted to be the one to break the silence and draw his attention. To be the instigator, the barer of bad news, was a death sentence. Because Bill Cipher didn't just shoot the messenger, he flayed their skin and strung them by the neck from the downtown bridge to make an example of them.

That's the kind of man this was. His calm outward demeanour was as trusting as a landmine, one wrong move, one breath, and the whole bar would erupt in a shower of bullets and blood. It didn't matter if you were friend or foe. Who ever got in his way would be dead before they hit the floor. Even the slight buzz from the neon halogen was enough to set him off, shown in the way Bill's thumb started to drum against the table top with steady rhythmic control. It made everybody seated around the booth flinch.

While his sharp eye trailed from each shadowed face to the next with the utmost attention, his mind seemed to be elsewhere. It was, indeed elsewhere. This distraction, this withdrawal, was strange and unsettling to everyone including him. He sat in the present but his mind had crumbled away after days of minimal sleep and added stress. It left behind a husk of a frame that was loosing control of its pent-up violence and hunger for something other than gin and cigarettes.

He'd been counting the hours since his last shred of peace. The tally now reaching a full week and Bill was on his last scrap of sanity. Every day had been spent trying, and failing, to right the wrong that had been done to him and at every turn his men had come back empty handed. Either by sheer dumb luck or some unfathomable act of God. However, do to such incompetence, he had to put an end to more than a few useless lives and dirty his precious home with blood stains and bits of bone fragment.

Now, he was at his limits and personally getting involved where his men had failed. He'd even dressed up for the occasion in a fine tailed pinstripe suit and outer coat, coordinating gold cuff-links and tie pin. Bill tipped back the brim of his fedora and rolled his head to one side. The stiff joint giving off a loud popping sound like a gun shot. With an impatient sigh he addressed his men, letting his voice carry all his irritation and annoyance until he almost yelled each word and filled the bar with a booming echo.

"Does anyone wish to tell me why we are here tonight?"

The question was not rhetorical or sarcastic. Every person at that table knew why they'd been called out, fully aware of the reason for such a last minute meeting. The slight drumming of his finger returned to fill the pause, as steady as a ticking clock. Bill hated to be left waiting and impatiently snapped at them all, somehow louder than before.