Chapter Six: The Miserable
Baz was quickly running out of nice clothes.
His wardrobe was, for obvious reasons, mostly black. If it wasn't black, it was athletic. If it wasn't black or athletic, it was denim.
It wasn't as if Jasper's fat envelopes of money couldn't pay for a full wardrobe... Baz just had what he needed, though being on Jasper's payroll had contributed to about a million different pairs of shoes, including his split toes and cycling shoes and his barely-there, can-hardly-call-them-shoes shoes.
"I always thought escorts would have better taste," Diego said.
"I have good taste," Baz insisted, but if that were 100% true, he wouldn't have dragged Diego out in the first place. Diego didn't have the same approach to life that Baz took. Even just standing in the middle of the store in the middle of the mall, three of the sales associates had come over to make sure they were finding everything alright, letting their eyes rove over Diego a little too long.
He might've been looking at his phone most of the time, barely looking up to nod, but maybe that was part of the endearment. How would they react if he actually made eye contact?
In the brief instant Baz noted two of them lurking half-hidden behind a mannequin, there was a flicker of envy. Diego made it look easy. Usually Baz found it more amusing, just not on a day when the face of Angelix by De Saunier told him to wait for her call.
"You have shit taste. You order clothes off of Amazon based on reviews," Diego barely looked up from his phone to give Baz a judgmental eyebrow raise.
Diego was right on at least one account, but that method had served Baz well.
"Whatever. I thought you'd be more helpful," Baz said, but maybe it was less about actually needing help and more about distracting the sales associates so they wouldn't notice as Baz floundered through menswear like Tarzan trying on real clothes for the first time.
He grabbed a couple hangers off the racks, reminding himself to double check the sizes before he accidently took an extra large. He threw a pair of dress pants over his arm.
"Are you going to try anything on?" Diego asked and by his tone, Baz guessed the only correct answer was yes.
On cue, a blonde in a sharp blazer popped out from whatever hiding place she'd been admiring Diego. "Do you need a fitting room?"
"Yup," Diego answered before Baz could say another word. Baz offered her an expression somewhere between a grin and gritted teeth. What difference would a fitting room make if he didn't really have that great an idea of what made for a good fit? It was best to just get it done.
Halfway into looking less like regular bruises-and-parkour Baz and more like Europe-touring Baz, his phone rang from his jeans, hanging by a belt loop off a hook. He fumbled for it.
Jasper.
He cringed, but answered anyway.
"There's a police investigation on and you've decided to go shopping?" If it wasn't Diego judging him, it was Jasper.
Baz freed up his hands, shouldering the phone to his ear while he wrangled buttons into their holes.
"I know what I'm doing," Baz said.
"Forgive me for doubting that very much." Jasper sure sounded concerned for someone whose fingerprints weren't all over Rei Collingwood's library and closet.
"Look, I have a lead. You stuck me in a tuxedo, now I have a standard to uphold," Baz said. The rules of black tie were much more straightforward. The business casual thing was a mystery to him. How much business was too much business and how much casual was too much casual?
"Who'd you bring with you?"
Baz froze, blinking at his own reflection a few times.
"Is that a threat?" he asked, "you're following me around now?"
Silence. Baz didn't care for that at all.
"Just remember what your goal is here," Jasper said.
Baz liked their arrangement a lot better when Jasper only called when there was a job and they only saw each other in the back of a black sedan. "I know. Find Rei or find myself in county jail. I didn't forget."
"Make sure that you don't."
Jasper hung up on him. Rude, but Baz's expectations for Jasper were set low as far as social conduct was concerned.
He stared into the reflection, finding it hard to see himself in the mirror. It used to be fine. He used to just be a guy with a talent for jumping over walls and climbing up buildings in the middle of the night. As soon as Baz stepped out of the black sedan, he was done until the next time Jasper called.
That was what their arrangement was supposed to be, but did Baz really have any say in the matter?
His phone vibrated in his hand and for a second, he expected to see Jasper's name light up across the screen again, tacking on another task, another threat.
It wasn't.
U dead in there? Just Diego. Baz reminded himself to breathe as he un-business casual-ed himself.
Baz found Diego leaning up against a rack, letting the blonde talk at him while he nodded somewhat appropriately, still scrolling through his phone. The smile Baz offered was forced, but Diego didn't glance up enough to notice. That, or he was just too nonchalant to mention it.
"I found you some socks," Diego said.
"Socks?" Baz asked.
"Socks, you uncultured chicken nugget." Diego all but rolled his eyes. If Baz really was Tarzan, walking amongst the civilized folk for the first time, maybe Diego would've been a little more sympathetic. "You can't wear your damn white socks with dress shoes. Jesus, Baz, do you even have a pair of dress shoes?"
"I did..." Baz braced for judgment, "I threw them off a roof."
He didn't dare mention that he'd skipped socks altogether when donning a tuxedo. His footwear of choice just hadn't allowed for it. Saying that out loud would've melted Diego's brain.
Diego stared at him, blinking through his disbelief. "Lord, give me strength," he muttered under his breath, eyes darting up, "well, pay and come on, then."
Baz put on his fake innocent, naive smile and Diego just shook his head, wandering away to psych himself up for round two of shopping with an unfashionable clod.
Baz couldn't help but look for Jasper in the crowd beyond him.
***
Gwen sent him the address midway through the afternoon and by six o'clock, Baz found himself loitering outside the Palace Theatre in new everything, including a haircut at Diego's condescending suggestion.
Les Misérables was playing, which wasn't Baz's favorite of Victor Hugo's work, contrary to popular opinion of almost everyone. He always remembered how the English edition somehow lost four hundred pages in translation.
Maybe he should've paid more attention to the man whose life was ruined by stealing a loaf of bread.
Most patrons were middle-aged or older, dressed up for a night out, but not to the extent Baz saw at Rei's penthouse. There were fewer pearls, fewer diamonds, and less cologne. They stepped into the theatre while Baz melted into the background, pretending to look at his phone while catching bits of conversation.
"Cheng promises we're up this quarter."
"Well, I'd hope so. With all the break-ins, a lot of people are upgrading."
Baz's eyes skimmed inattentively over his calendar, catching the two older women in his peripheral vision.
"It would be a shame if he sunk his father's company," one woman said, "I remember giving Alex a car for his 21st. Giles Collingwood gave his children a business."
They didn't think twice about who might be in earshot, especially not Baz. If they noticed him at all, they didn't care. He wasn't important enough. It was an assumption Baz thrived on. People carried on about such private things out in public. Money, business, love affairs.
Gwen arrived in a sleek town car, the driver stepping out to open her door for her like she was arriving at a red carpet. Her dress gave the occasion away. It didn't graze the ground like he'd expect from a real celebrity appearance. It was too simple and hit just above her knees. Mostly, it just proved that she was not just a mannequin for beautiful things. She made everything look better.
"You found yourself a pair of socks," she said, but in a way that made it sound like she was congratulating a child.
Baz forced his smile. "You noticed."
"Of course I did, sweetie," Gwen said, her smile genuinely amused, "are you going to offer me your arm or not?"
Or not was not an acceptable answer, it was just a placeholder for come on, you idiot. Baz obliged, and Gwen's fingers once again found their way to his arm, albeit more gently.
Would he ever get used to her touching him? It was possible that would be counterproductive to his cause. It very well could've been that the only reason he managed any semblance of calm was because it still felt like a dream. Too surreal, too impossible. Still part dream, part nightmare.
They walked in, Gwen in more of a strut and Baz just trying to maintain the illusion that he wasn't interloping.
"What are you doing here?" The sharp accent caught Baz off guard, but Gwen turned expectant and apathetic. "Who is that?"
Cheng looked so hard at Baz, it felt closer to being looked right through, but in a laser vision way and not the invisible way.
Her free hand slipped into her purse, withdrawing heavy cardstock and two tickets. "'You and a guest—'" Gwen gestured at Baz, "'—are formally invited to see Les Misérable on behalf of Sundial Security.'"
If there was ever a person who could be described as glowering, it was Cheng Collingwood. "Was it your name on the envelope?"
"My father is rather indisposed at the moment, isn't he?" Gwen replied.
Cheng's expression softened, if only fractionally. "You know I am sorry for that."
"Mhmm. If you'll excuse me, I believe I'm entitled to a glass of wine." Even under the veneer of her apathy, she looked like she needed it. She was a model, not an actress, after all.
Baz had never attracted the attention of a bartender faster than when Gwen Ferrero was on his arm. The uniformed young man perked up right away, likely identifying her quickly. Maybe it took a second. The recognition was always there in people's faces, but it took a moment to piece together why her face and, to be frank, her figure, were so familiar. There was even a chance that the bartender knew her only as the stunning woman in a halo advertising a perfume in a department store. Who hadn't walked by her face a hundred times, enlarged and in high definition?
"I'll take a merlot," Gwen said, her smile less decadent. It wasn't a you're-the-only-man-in-the-world smile.
"Same," Baz said. As much as he wanted to believe Gwen only invited him for the pleasure of his company, his entire previous experiences with her led him to conclude how unlikely that was. She didn't strike him as a person who kept people around for their pleasant company. That wasn't useful enough. He couldn't imagine her owning a pet unless it could do something for her like fetch her slippers or fix her a drink.
And someone else would have to train it for her. The bartender would probably give it a shot, if she asked.
Instead of training dogs to do tricks, the barman just handed them their plastic cups of red wine and Gwen's grip slipped from Baz's arm.
"I have a request," she whispered.
Of course. There was the drop.
"What'll it be?" Baz asked, no better than a bartender. He liked to think his willingness was due in part to finding Rei and the clear advantage Gwen gave him on that front.
"We need Rei's penthouse keys," Gwen said, "Cheng has the spare set."
Baz took more than a sip of his wine. How did everything manage to lead back to obtaining things that weren't his? Did he put that aura out into the world? Did he somehow look particularly thief-ish, even without his soft-soled shoes?
"Oh. Is that it?" Baz asked. He meant to sound more surprised, or at least annoyed. Normal people were meant to be more surprised by propositions like that.
"They're in his pocket." Gwen raised her eyebrows. "On his keyring."
Baz turned, watching Cheng greet other cardstock-brandishing couples as they checked their coats. A woman took a gentleman's wool coat and slipped it onto a hanger, disappearing and promptly reappearing to serve the next in line. Baz came around to Gwen's way of thinking, and it was certainly closer to his modus operandi.
"Coat check?" he asked.
"You just need to know which jacket is his," Gwen said, "then part two comes during intermission. I'll meet you inside." She handed Baz her second ticket.
Without further discussion, Baz slipped through the crowd, closer to the coat check, while Gwen remained inconspicuously on the other side of the room, making idle small talk. Her eyes caught his just for a moment.
"Do you know how long the show runs?" Baz asked the elderly woman behind the desk. She only looked at him sideways, hands busy taking jackets and handing out the numbered tokens for them. He watched the numbers climb. 65, 66, 67...
"Just under three hours," she said as Cheng Collingwood shrugged out of his peacoat next to Baz. The woman took it, handing him his piece of plastic in return. 68.
Baz flashed the woman a smile that she probably missed, too flustered by the rush of patrons. He slipped away so easily, just one more person to take up a seat. No one who mattered in particular, and he let the ushers point him in the right direction along with the dozens who filed in before him. Men and women barely looked up from their programs to let him slip by to his seat next to Gwen.
"Do you like musicals?" she asked.
"Well enough," Baz replied.
"Everyone dies in this, don't they?" Gwen asked, but it wasn't so much a question as it was a dry statement. There would be dying and she didn't exactly look riveted to witness it, but where else would there be another opportunity to slip a hand into Cheng's pocket?
Baz wasn't a pickpocket. That wasn't a skill he'd acquired in his employ. Strictly burglary, and he didn't even truly do all the work. If it were up to him to disarm the security systems, he'd be sunk. Sirens would swing around the corner faster than he could outrun a guard dog and scale a garden wall.
"It literally translates to The Miserables. Wretched would also be acceptable," Baz said, "it's not exactly uplifting."
Gwen sipped her wine, her gaze fading into the disenchanted melancholy that made her an excellent model. There was no camera snapping shots, and Baz waffled over a line that only existed in his head.
"Your father's sick?" Baz hazarded a guess. He remembered rather indistinctly the speech she'd made while he admired Rei's bedroom of framed butterflies. It wasn't her speech to make, but her father's. And again, here she was in the place of a man who couldn't take their seats.
"Yeah," Gwen said, "I wouldn't be in Temperance otherwise."
There were a million other places in the world Gwen could be. She must have had the luxury of picking and choosing, of jetsetting week in and week out to do beachfront campaigns one day and diamond ads in the mountains the next. When the world was at her fingertips, Temperance was not a first choice destination. It was just a city on the coast where her father lived, and maybe soon would die.
"I'm sorry," Baz said, as if he had the right to offer his condolences. They'd only met three days ago in an elevator.
"It's fine," Gwen said.
The lights dimmed and the first half of the production began, music swelling from the orchestra pit. Baz fidgeted idly with the chain around his neck.
In another time, his mother read to him great romantic tragedies in her soft, intense French. When he didn't understand, it was just a tool of hers to lull him to sleep while she caught up on her reading. When he did understand, his mother just refused to listen to any criticism that it was inappropriate to read children books about death and injustice.
Gwen sighed every once in awhile next to him, her shoulders relaxing as she nearly fell asleep until the musical numbers grew too loud to ignore. It was well over an hour before the first act finished.
Baz gently nudged Gwen back into consciousness.
"What's your plan?" he asked. Other people rose from their seats, stretching stiff legs after a much longer first act than they were probably used to.
"I'll find a distraction. You get the key. There should be a smaller ring with a weird elevator key. You'll know it when you see it," Gwen said.
They rose, milling out of the house like everyone else, off to have their wine glasses refilled.
Gwen was right in taking intermission to enact part two. There were so many people, it was impossible to see too far ahead of himself. They could've slipped out of the theater during the show, but the lobby would've been empty. Any camera positioned in discreet corners, any bartender wiping down the counters, would've seen them attempting to slip into the coat check closet.
Only smokers grabbed jackets to step outside. The attendant appeared much less frazzled behind her desk, the bartenders taking the brunt of the excitement instead.
Gwen leaned over the counter.
"There's, ah, there's something going on in the bathroom. Can you please come see?" Gwen asked, eyes pleading.
"One of the ushers—" the woman began.
"It's really urgent," Gwen pressed, "please."
Gwen's charms weren't nearly as effective on elderly women as they were on young bartenders and thieves.
Reluctantly, the coat checker vacated her post, following Gwen to the restroom.
Baz, following his general 'look like you're supposed to be here' rule, let himself behind the desk as professionally as possible. He slipped into the closet without anyone shouting or pointing or otherwise even noticing. He could've been a volunteer as far as anyone else knew.
Though, one hoped most volunteers didn't slip their hands into jacket pockets. Unless Gwen coincidentally did come upon a bathroom emergency, there wasn't a lot of time.
Baz slid the coat hooks along their racks, flipping through numbers. 50, 51... 59, 60...67, 68. Cheng Collingwood's wool peacoat felt expensive to the touch, too soft not to be. Baz felt for the keyring in the right pocket, bringing it out into the light. There weren't many keys to choose from. One was a key to a Porsche which did Baz zero use at all.
A little bell rang and Baz's attention jarred away from the keyring and up to the man waiting with a cigarette already between his lips. Baz swallowed, jamming the whole keyring into his pocket before stepping out of the closet. Silently, Baz plastered on a polite customer service smile and took the numbered token and ducked back into the closet for the corresponding hanger. He passed it over the counter and the annoyed smoker tossed a dollar into the tip jar.
Well, that softened the wrongdoing just a little.
He returned to the cover of the closet, finding the strangely shaped elevator key easily on the second go-around. He forced the ring off the larger set and pocketed the penthouse keys.
Heart beating a little faster, Baz left the way he came.
"I swear there was water everywhere," Gwen insisted, trailing behind the unimpressed coat checker. Baz caught her eye and turned for the bar. Another glass of wine was definitely in order.
He stood in line behind everyone else needing another drink to prepare themselves for the second act. Gwen appeared at his elbow and Baz was grateful if only because she gave him somewhere to look while he avoided Cheng at all costs.
"So?" she asked.
Baz dug into his pocket and took Gwen's hand, pressing the keys into her palm. "I think you owe me this next round."
Gwen tilted her head, the coiled curls of her hair swaying in an enticingly old Hollywood way. If he didn't know any better, Baz would say she was impressed. "I underestimated you."
"I usually prefer it that way," Baz said, "I'd hate to set the standard too high too soon."
As much as Baz would like to say he was merely a humble guy, he really did enjoy staying under the radar until it was useful to be noticed. Being good could be a disappointment. There was such a thing as being overhyped. Being good was enough. He didn't need to be well known.
"Now you can relax and enjoy the rest of the show," Baz teased, only daring to because he had just handed her what she wanted and that seemed enough to earn him the right to poke fun at her.
A smile ghosted her dark lips. "I can't wait."
They both walked back to their seats, wine in hand, before most of the audience had returned.
"So, you studied in France. This must be your scene," Gwen said.
"Well, if nothing else, it's an impressive feat to condense 1,900 pages into a stage musical just under three hours," Baz said.
Gwen's eyebrows shot up. "I'm sorry, did you say 1,900 pages?"
"The English edition is shorter." Baz shrugged.
"Thank God I didn't major in French literature. I barely made it through Hamlet in school," Gwen said. Wine met her lips, merlot still a lighter shade than the lipstick that she left imprinted on the plastic rim.
"So, our only common ground is finding everyone else at parties boring," Baz said.
"I've had flings that stood on wobblier legs than that," Gwen replied. No doubt she had. Baz had probably read about it while standing in line at the grocery store, staring blankly at tabloid magazines.
"I don't know what to say to that," Baz replied, though there was the hint of something. What kind of relationship did they stand on? What would happen when Baz ceased to be useful? He suspected he would also cease to be kept around.
"That's a good sign to be quiet," Gwen replied, but her smile made it teasing.
The audience settled back into the house, an announcement ushering them back in to sit through the second act. There was so much dying in the Romantic period. No one got a happily ever after. No one had a first kiss that could cure death and grant them a castle. It could make a cynic out of anyone, but there was something so beautiful and melancholy in the almost of it.
Or maybe Baz had just grown up on those stories instead of fairy tales or he might have believed that the underdog got the girl, won the riches, and wore the crown.
He'd settle for just not going to prison for a lifetime.
The play ended and even Gwen rose to her feet for the ovation of a show that she barely watched, and without Baz tugging her upright. He almost forgot the whole nature of her invite in the midst of the long second act.
Almost.
"Are you free tomorrow?" Gwen whispered, leaning into him to do so. Her hand brushed against his, her fingers suggesting how they might fit in the spaces between his.
"To go to Rei's?" Baz asked. How flirtatious it must have looked, the way he had to nearly touch her to speak to her.
Gwen nodded, her eyes imploring. Demure, practically. Baz resisted the urge to scoff; as if Gwen could be shy. Gwen, the woman printed at ten times her size on posters showcasing the fine contours of her body. Yet, there was something about her that made Baz doubt himself, wondering if he was right to assume that a woman who may well have bled confidence could really be vulnerable.
"I'm free." Baz swallowed.
"Then I'll call you." Gwen smiled.
They escaped the throngs of people, stepping into the city air a degree cooler than they'd left it more than three hours prior. Gwen offered her hand and Baz hesitated a moment before letting Gwen lead him down the block, away from the trample zone. Even streetlight complimented her complexion, her hair. There was an off-chance that everything in the universe was made to flatter Gwen.
She paused, considering something unseen before turning to him.
"You impressed me," she said, "so, I forgive you."
Before Baz could comment, wryly or otherwise, Gwen pressed into him. Her graceful arm looped around his neck and her mouth found his, ensuring his silence.
She was an expert, a tantalizing queen of knowing exactly when to leave him wanting. The flick of her tongue would shock him and be gone again, interrupted to accommodate a trail left by her lips down his jaw bone. She stole his breath and only gave it back to him when she was satisfied. Baz felt clumsy by comparison when he'd always felt himself to be in control and rapturous in his own right. When he wasn't caught off guard. When his partner wasn't Gwen Ferrero.
In Gwen's wake, everyone else looked a little inferior.
She leaned back, eyes heavy-lidded. Her thumb dragged across his lip, erasing any evidence she left behind. "I'll see you tomorrow."
It was so easy for her to disappear, turning away from him to hail a cab. Gone, just like that, leaving Baz all but discarded for the evening.