Chapter Text
Brazil was probably lovely at that time of the year. The posters showed it all - palm trees, hot scorching sun, beautiful women, coconut water and Rio de Janeiro. People talked about it, making plans of traveling to that South American paradise, in which people walked over the walls with happiness, danced samba, played soccer and drank delicious caipirinhas. There was advertising about that country everywhere: television, newspapers. Every single travel agency around Boston had at least one poster and one image of a very attractive - although scantly clad - woman, inciting the costumers to purchase tickets. Carmen Miranda movies would occasionally air on television, and everyone was mesmerized by the glow of that beautiful singer, wearing fruits on her head and talking to the American men about how proud she was of the Brazilian land. Disillusioned with the post-war world, running away to literal paradise seemed like the logical response to the veterans. Many of them wanted to disappear in between the trees of a tropical paradise.
But not Conan.
He wasn’t a veteran, he didn’t have money.
He was tired.
He would pass those posters every day to work. It was winter in Boston, and even somewhat protected as he was, he still felt that uncomfortable cold that seemed to intrude his space, and ignore the thick coats and gloves he usually wore. Inches and inches of snow covered that goddamn city, and it was the worst day for his car to break down. He felt like his career was a farce and he knew that if he missed a single day of work, no one would bat an eye, but it was the only thing that kept him going. Every day he had the same routine: waking up, showering, having eggs and bacon for breakfast and coming to the office. He survived by fueling his veins with caffeine, drinking copious amounts of coffee, which ironically came from Brazil as well. If one was out of coffee, there was always the whiskey. If there wasn’t whiskey, there were cigarettes. One addiction over another, and if these wouldn’t suffice, he would find another one.
The only time Conan really desired to go to South America was to never feel that cold again. He had heating where he lived, which was a given, but the minute he stepped out of his apartment, he wanted to give up. He didn’t work that far away from home, but he still had to be there. He could have hailed a cab, he could have taken the T, but it all required human interaction, which he avoided like the plague. There was a big reason for him not to be as sociable as he once was, and those options put him in a position to talk to strangers - something he only did if the job required him to. He grumpily decided to walk to work, wearing a light gray three piece suit, two pairs of thick black gloves and two pairs of thick socks and yet, he felt like a piece of meat forgotten inside an old fridge. His brown overcoat was advertised as sturdy and warm, but he might as well have been naked, it didn’t change a damn thing. He started to resent those posters, and he started to resent coming to work. He fought the urge to come back home, hiding his reddish face from the cold wind. He held his black hat down, pressing it against his head, avoiding it from flying away.
Conan was glad not to be recognized as he reluctantly walked through the streets of Boston. He wasn’t the only private investigator there, of course, but he was considered one of the best. Not the single best one, but he had his merits. His long time, albeit estranged friend Andy Richter was also on the business, but they had fallen apart. Now he only had his secretary and his partner, both which surprisingly hadn’t left his side even after his smile became an almost permanent frown. He was bitter as the coffee he drank every morning, and they were mostly used to it, although sometimes his secretary tried to make him feel better. It never worked. She never took what he said to heart, because she knew he was deeply hurt and feeling what he felt was the only outcome possible after the huge trauma he had been through. He wasn’t less of an asshole because of it, but there was a reason for him to be one.
He arrived at the office, and as usual, his secretary was the only one there. The curly haired Armenian lady had taken the job when Conan needed the most help, as his partner needed to be with him on the field. Both his secretary and his partner were extremely unorganized, they were late to every task they needed to do, but they were good friends. Conan knew that he had driven most people away, his secretaries and past partners left him because his bitterness always brought everybody down. It was draining to work for him, or with him. The police knew him well and they were short with him because of that. He would solve his cases and exclude himself out of the occasion. The agency took credit when credit was due, but besides press conferences, he never joined any of the parties thrown when a big case was solved. The police used to drink and cheer after a job well done, but Conan never thought it was right. It was an immense lack of tact. He was a miserable son of a bitch, but he knew the pain of losing a loved one. It wasn’t worth celebrating.
“Where is Schlansky?” Conan said, as he threw his coat over the coat hanger on the wall.
The place was clean enough. They paid someone to clean the office once a week, and it was close to cleaning day, thus the dirtiest day of the week. Conan was a chronic smoker, so the fault lied on him as well. The secretary, Mrs. Movsesian, was watching television. Her wooden desk was unorganized as always - letters and requests from the police were all over it. Conan was tired to tell her to clean up, and it seemed like she thrived on the mess, so he let it go after a while. She usually had her hair in a bun, but that day in particular, it was untied. She was dressed in a nice light blue short-sleeved cocktail dress. She had ditched her medium sized heels, and they could be seen under her desk. Her husband had probably driven her there, and she didn’t have to suffer through the cold like Conan did.
“No idea,” Mrs. Movsesian replied, not paying attention to her boss, and not looking at him in the eyes. The Three Stooges were more interesting than him, anyway.
“Why is it so cold in here?” Conan asked, feeling like the inside was freezing as much as the outside. He shook his feet one at a time, and stepped hard on the floor to get rid of the snow.
“Thermostat is broken,” she replied, still not looking at him in the eyes.
“And why is that?” Conan sighed.
“Who knows?”, she asked, and it seemed like he was bothering her.
“Sona, that’s your fucking job,” Conan replied, annoyed.
“It’s not my job to fix the thermostat!” Sona said, a bit exasperated.
“But it’s your job to get it fixed, and you could start by calling someone,” Conan frowned as he took his hat and put it on the hanger as well. He was extremely unmotivated to come to work, and even more unmotivated to stay in a cold office with a lippy secretary. He approached her desk and took the phonebook, shook it on front of her and put it in place once again.
The whole place looked depressing. The yellowed wallpapers needed to be changed, they couldn’t postpone a deep clean more than they already did. The floor tiles weren’t in better condition, and they were as yellowed as the walls. All of that fell on Sona’s shoulders, as it was part or her attributions, but it was always difficult to organize something like it. Both O’Brien and Schlansky liked their spaces and had a lot in their heads. Moving them to another location was always a burden, especially when they were in the middle of a case. So Mrs. Movsesian decided to wait for a bit before calling for someone to do it. In a surprising turn of events, a case came to her hands, a big one. There was no way to stop operations, especially due to the nature of it. She was waiting for both of them to be there, but it seemed like Schlansky was going to be late. O’Brien lit a cigarette, turned on his table lamp and went through the papers on his own desk: some “thank you” notes, more police bureaucracy, and even some “visit South America” pamphlets. He had advised Sona to throw them away, but some always ended up in the middle of the important documents. After a minute of so of silence and shuffling sheets of paper, Sona spoke.
“Chief of Police called,” she said, “they have a new case for us.”
“Hm…”, Conan grunted, holding the cigarette between his fingers, “I thought they were calling mostly for Richter these days.”
“They said it’s important,” Sona replied, grabbing some papers from her desk. She stretched and looked for her shoes with her feet, putting them on. She slowly dragged herself to Conan’s desk, as he exhaled the cigarette smoke.
“Here is the police report,” Sona handed Conan the papers, “they want you to read it as soon as possible.”
Conan looked up, looked at his secretary and took the papers. He read a bit of the first page and raised his eyebrows.
“Anything special about this particular case?” Asked O’Brien.
Mrs. Movsesian loved crime novels. Anything involving crime like movies and television, pulp fiction magazines. It was perhaps one of the reasons that she still held that job. She was a bit nosy, and would usually read everything sent their way. Schlansky was annoyed by that at first, but O’Brien convinced him that it brought them no harm. They would always ask Sona about her opinions, and they would either make the investigators laugh or roll their eyes. Sometimes she was spot on about some things, which meant that the novels were doing their job.
“Yeah,” Mrs. Movsesian sighed, “there’s a reason for them to ask for your presence at the police station.”
“And that would be…”
“It’s an active serial killer.”
O’Brien’s eyes widened. He had never dealt with an active serial killer before. They would usually solve singular murders, they would bust cheaters, some offenses were not even that absurd. But an active serial killer was something completely different. It sounded exciting, but it was also dangerous, which probably would pay more than usual. He needed to know what Schlansky thought of that, but the other one hadn’t arrived.
“Sona, where’s Jordan?” O’Brien asked one more time.
“I told you, I do not know,” the secretary replied, sighing and coming back to her desk.
As soon as Mrs. Movsesian closed her mouth, there came the partner. O’Brien detested his tardiness, he was always late, sometimes with an excuse, sometimes he didn’t even look people in the eyes. He had that “logical” and “mechanical” look at life which could be very effective and useful during an investigation, but boring during day to day life. No matter how much people told him to act normal, he would insist that he was and he would continue to act like that. All methodical with his Italian suits and the old espresso machine. Buying cheap coffee was probably the biggest sin Mrs. Movsesian could ever commit. Conan always thought the coffee tasted the same, but Jordan always explained that there was “lost potential” with certain brands. The police would call him names sometimes. Hell, even the witnesses would ask if something was wrong with him. He did not seem to care.
“Good morning,” Jordan said, the inflection of his words sounded like he was devoid of enthusiasm.
“Morning,” Sona replied.
“Where were you?” Conan asked.
Jordan took off his cream overcoat, to reveal his black suit. He shook it a bit to get rid of the snow and put it on the coat hanger, along with his equally stylish black hat. He did it in the most Jordan way, slowly, which irritated Conan profusely. It was like he couldn’t move and act like a common human being. He approached the two as they looked at him, waiting for Jordan to move faster, which he never seemed to do.
“As you can see, the snow isn’t collaborating today,” Schlansky replied.
Conan sighed, and Jordan didn’t say anything more, neither apologized. He went straight to the point.
“Now, what are we going to do today?”