Smith International: Swap Meet

Summary

Daniel Kaatz has been selling off his presumed-dead uncle RJ's things at Trader's Village. Ajax, Selene, Freya and Laurel show up to make some purchases. Freya buys some Smith International paraphernalia while Selene and Laurel key in on some interesting boxes of stuff that Danny seems to know some measure of the value of, even if he does act too scatterbrained to see what's right in front of him.

While there, Ajax notices and confronts a man with too much composure who gives Ajax nothing to work with, but his instincts rightly tell him that this man is a plant for a higher authority, and absolutely watching whoever purchases those papers or hangs out too much with Danny. He counsels Selene to lose her inevitable tail, and Hallah, catching on, sneaks off and grabs a glimpse of this stranger's car and license plate.

Log

Traders Village sprawls across acres of asphalt and dust on the northwest side of Houston, a weekend institution where you can buy anything from bootleg CDs to live chickens if you know where to look. Or nunchucks. Hell. The October heat hasn't broken yet -- as if it ever really will until November. The sun beats down on hundreds of vendor stalls, their tarps and aluminum canopy frames creating a patchwork city of commerce that shimmers in the afternoon glare.

The soundscape is relentless. Competing radios bleed Tejano and hip-hop into the humid air punctuated by the periodic crackle of the PA system announcing lost children in English and Spanish. Shopping carts rattle over uneven pavement. Generators chug and sputter powering snow cone stands and the oscillating fans that vendors aim at themselves more than their customers. Somewhere always a baby is crying, a dog is barking, a musician is playing and people are haggling in Spanish at a machine gun cadence.

Barbacoa tacos and funnel cakes from the food court hang in the air seasoned by that scent of fry oil mingling with dust and diesel exhaust from the parking shuttles that make their endless loops. There's the impossible-to-define scent of used goods: old fabric vintage leather cardboard boxes that just smell like a storage unit. Hot metal. Sweat. The sweetness of aguas frescas mixing with char and chiles and garlic.

It's mid-afternoon and everything is filmed with a fine coating of dust. The shadows under the canopies are sharp and dark against the bleached-out brightness of the walkways and families cluster in whatever shade they can find. There are grandparents pushing strollers, teenagers breaking off to oggle jewelry and knockoff Starter jackets, mothers negotiating prices while keeping one eye on too many kids as they stretch their paychecks just a little further.

(Hallah) Hallah has a small booth here. A small booth means less rent. The size is bit misleading her booth is jammed with things! Setting upon a old card table is cream-colored sheet for cover. To the side of the tables are shelves with things. There is a shorter shelves with things in front of the table too. She has corkboard too with all kinds of hook hanging form it and yet more things! The stuff she sells ranges hugely from things she found, to thing she fixed, to things she made. There is vintage glass from the 1930s-early 70s like old milk glass, depression glass fenton glass, Indiana glass and even a few items of handblown glass. There is some vintage studio pottery that is artist signed and mostly from the 50s and 60s. There is toys, mostly old and repaired toys, including some of the early 70s smurfs. There is repaired and cleaned vintage clothing mostly from the 50s and 60s, but a few 70s items too. There is some pretty Gunne Saxe dresses hanging up and plenty of flower child clothing and costume jewelry. There is some of that Peddleton preppy plaid wool pleated skirts and the like. Wooden boxes have been reoiled. Old silver has been polisehd. Small chips in pottery has been fixed. Little rubbed off paint on figurines has been fixed up. There is also homemade things too! Like knit stuffies, knit hats, knit scarfs, knit blankets and home made sundress with patchs. Much of his holloween and fall themed.

There is bat stuffies, candy korn ones, cats, pumpkins and so forth. The sundresses are in a range of color sand styles, but more fall, harvest and halloween themes than anything. Most end at mid-thigh and have ribbons for sleeves. They have patches of black cats, bats, candy korns, pumpkins, gourds, cranberries and so forth! They are in colors like cream, cream, orange, brown and etc. The cranberry themed dress comes in red and also in white.

(Ajax) Ajax is there at Hallah's stand, having been sidetracked for the fifth time since he arrived from his mission of buying something important on Emma's behalf by knickknacks and stall accoutremont. He stands there admiring some of the depression-era glass in his hand, holding it up to the light as he squints and rubbing his chin contemplatively, deeply considering the qualities and considering making an impulse purchase based on a warped sense of aesthetics and the mere fact that he was in a 'buy things' state of mind, like the most impressionable rube to ever have been born.

"Hallah...where did you come by all of these things again? I know there must be a story behind this collection...tell me about this one, would you?" his sonorous voice has an art appreciator's quiet, mysterious throaty air to it.

(Medina) Danny Kaatz's booth is one of the smaller setups, just a folding table under a white canopy that's seen better days, one corner held together with gaumed up duct tape peeling at its edges from caked-on dust. The canopy struggles against the breeze, its aluminum frame creaking with each gust, and Danny's weighted it down with a couple of milk crates full of what looks like more of his uncle's stuff.

Who is Danny? You probably wouldn't know him by his looks, alone. He's no staple of Juniper Cross. He's just some hazel-eyed, stringbean White kid in his 20s, shaggy hair that has a bit of a wave, and it curls up at its edges beneath the sunbleached Texas A&M baseball cap he wears to shield himself from the sun.

The table itself is a mess of controlled chaos. Work boots sit in mismatched pairs on the ground beneath the table, toes scuffed but serviceable. On the table, there's coveralls, gloves, and gear, some of it still in its plastic factory wrapping. Real Carhartts, good quality, barely worn.

What identifies him, when you do find him, is that hodgepodge of branded paraphernalia. Zippo lighters, hard hat pencil holders, coffee mugs, t-shirts, and other such corporate anniversary gifts. Milk crates of who knows what. Promotional stuff, too, like tiny adorable little promotional Drilco puffball men. It's not organized. In fact, the whole setup has that desperate, last-minute quality, having thrown everything in his truck without really looking at it, driven here, and just started pulling shit out.

Danny himself is sweating it out in a ribbed tank that has seen too many laundry days, sucking down the smoke of a Marlboro Red, the Folgers can on the aluminum folding chair he stands next to playing the part of his ash tray. Every few minutes, his eyes track to the main walkway, then back to his merchandise, then to whoever's browsing.

(Selene)

Selene doesn't have a booth here. But she does have some folding money and a folded-up list tucked into her jeans pocket. She's also got a shoulder bag which was probably originally made for the Korean war based on its base color (olive green?) and current status (intact but beat to shit).

That bag already has some crap in it. But Selene finds herself approaching Hallah's stall while eating her way through a big-ass foil-wrapped barbacoa taco. This keeps her from calling out a greeting, though she does give Ajax and Hallah an up-nod as she draws nearer...

But she's not going there right away. Instead she ends up at Danny's booth. She stays far enough away to not be in the 'I'm buying right now or else I'm occluding the merch' zone, but she's clearly looking at everything while finishing off the taco. Especially the puffball-men.

(Laurel) Laurel was not at Hallah's stand. The flannel wearing young woman just perusing her way through the aisles until the unmistakeable voice of Ajax is heard and Laurel peeks her head around the corner and then quickly the rest of her. "I bet she came by it in ways she's much more willing to tell than //some// people here..." she drawls out even as she points her chin in the direction of the strung out Danny the sweaty and the smokey.

(Freya)

Freya is wandering around the market. Stopping to look at this and that along the way at the different stalls. She has a plate with a funnel cake on it that she is picking at here and there, as she moves along, a bottled water stuffed into her back pocket, causing the seat of her pants to get wet from the condensation, but she doesn't seem to care too much.

(Hallah) The depression glass that Ajax lifts is very pretty! It is rare lavender color that shines just right in the light. A little serving tray divided into 3 sections with a handle. She smiles at Ajax's words. She really got his for dirty cheap at a garage sale, but she lies. She lies quickly and happily, like has nothing against such or in selling mode. "Well..that belonged to my great grandma Esther.." She says softly. She then looks to Laurel. "Oh, I never mind sharing how I got things." She says easily, easily because like a lot of people in this kind of business, she rarely reveals the real source of her treasures.

(Ajax) Ajax holds the lavender glassware in front of him out to Selene, and even to Laurel, dantily between his two fingers, his face incomprehensibly warped through the light it transmogrifies through it. He raises a brow, not that one could tell through the way the glass distorts his features, and his voice drops an octave and becomes even throatier. "It belonged to her great grandmother Esther," he repeats for them coolly, as if he'd known her himself.

(Medina) A Galliard at a flea market is a curious thing. The people around you ... Do give you space, although not quite so many that there's a complete dead-zone of space around you. When Selene passes through, when she pauses here and there, people hurry up about counting change, a young man says, 'Don't worry about it!' and breaks away without his five dollars to get away from the booth.

KZZZT! Everyone hears the PA crackles to life. 'ATENCION, ATENCION. SE BUSCA NINO PERDIDO, NOMBRE MIGUEL!' Oh, nooo, someone's kid has wandered off (again). The PA dissolves into Waterfalls being blasted on somebody's radio, competing with The Chronic, for what's probably the eleventh goddamn time today, and nobody is as aware of this as poor Hallah, who has been here to hear the same music over, and over, and over, and over.

When Selene shows up at Danny's booth, Danny looks up. He freezes. He looks away, then starts fidgeting with folding up clothes into slightly tighter squares than they were before, cigarette in his lips, trying to go for 'nonchalant retail routine that doesn't notice the scary lady'.

(Hallah) Hallah nod to Ajax. She is advertising her own clothing by wearing one of the cranberry themed sundresses in cream with embroidery of little cranberries along the them and bodice. It is a thanksgiving or harvest themed sundress with red rings for sleeves. She looks to Ajax. "It is a special rare piece." She adds. "It is from the 1930s, made by the Indiana Glass Company. Most of the 1930s glass they made is green or blue or red and some is pink. But Lavender is really rare." She says eagerly and this part is actually true. The piece is really good shape, but not perfect shape. It is a piece that has been used and held for a long time by previous owners only to eventually be abandoned for a fifty cents at a garage sale by the woman's actual grand children. She was named Rita and Irish, rather than Esther and Jewish. Hallah's great grandmother who left a treasure for Marion was Esther and Jewish though. So the lie has a tiny bit of truth to it.

(Hallah) Hallah signs at the song being repeated, but the sigh is replaced by the gentle eager smile of a girl who is trying to make sales and lure in customers.

(Laurel) "I'm sure great grandma Esther had many a treasure. Like the whole mermaid grotto," Laurel nods, fully believing that little white lie (or buying into the truth). And her head tilts as she watches Ajax still holds the lavender glass. "I think I saw a sign at the front that said if you hold something for more than two minutes, you buy it. Seems like you own the lady some cash, Ajax..."

(Freya)

Freya makes her way though the market and ends up finding herself at Hallah's stall. She smiles to the small woman and gives her a wave as she starts to look over all the stuff Hallah has for sale. She of course greets anyone else at Hallahs stall as well.

(Ajax) "I must have missed that sign," Ajax almost stammers with recalcitrance to Laurel, his brows knit as if he'd been caught or wounded. Having been cornered into a decision he believes most credulously, he does at the very least do what he does best and re-writes the narrative to suit his preferred reality, his fingers gripping the glass by the sturdy stem: "If it's that rare, I must have it for my collection," Ajax explains with a grave finality as he adds his first Indiana Glass depression-era item to his collection of now 1. He fishes out a wad of cash from his pockets after scoping the little attached price on the bottom, and hands it over to Hallah, grateful for the story that was mostly true that he would remember forever. "It's beautiful. How might I carry it? Do you have a bag I could purchase, as well?" He trades a similar greeting with Freya as she appears.

He squints a little at the overhead. "I think a boy named Nino may be walking the road to perdition," he muses, failing his romance language knowledge check.

(Selene)

Selene is torn from her eye-fucking of the immediate area of their target to look over towards Ajax as he speaks up. And the glass. And its obviously valid and not at all mendacious genealogy. As she finishes the last bite of her taco, she says, "Ain't that something."

Hallah then speaks at more length. Maybe it actually is rare. But after this, she turns her attention back towards Danny's booth, and back to him. She quietly crumples up her foil while wiping her chin with the paper towel, letting her glasses veil the exact sightline. As she does, she casts her thoughts back. Back to Albert Padilla. Back to the man who crossed back on the great sea, and got his runs back from the Germans.

"Man, I feel like I recognize this stuff," Selene says to Danny. "Where'd you like... get it?"

(Hallah) Hallah nods in response to Laurel. "Oh, she did have so many treasures. A life time of buying the most beautiful pieces and holding them with care. It is pretty good shape." Hallah says. "Sadly I live an RV and can no longer hold all this stuff." She says and tries to look sad for a moment. Hallah has an RV and she used to live in such before Kleio gave them the apartment so there is a bit of truth in that lie too. Hallah is one of those liars who often weaves in a little truth. She almost seems to forget that Ajax might very well know that Kleio gave them an apartment! She is that deeply taken into her story. She beams happily when Ajax buys the piece, a real smile that brightens her brown eyes and brings her dimples to bloom. "I have bags and can wrap it for you too so it doesn't break.." She says and goes to carefully wrap the glass in old newspaper. She smiles over to Laurel in thanks.

(Medina) Danny hears Selene's voice, and he looks up. His gaze flits avoidantly over her general form, not quite daring to meet her eyes, as he keeps the table between himself and her, his hands busying themselves with straightening out what he should've organized in the first place.

"Uh, it's my uncle's," he says, with a lack of conviction like he somehow isn't sure of that statement - it's less that the truth is questionable, and more that he's dipping his toes in the proverbial pool that is conversation with a woman that he's pretty sure could put him in a pine box. Real stalker energy he can't explain, that one.

"...He works uh, waste remediation," he adds, haltingly, trying to throw her some kind of bone.

(Medina) Just then, the breeze catches some of the loose papers in the boxes, and as they flutter, the motion is enough to easily capture a bystander's attention. Danny reaches down quick to keep them from blowing away, dropping a shirt as he does, and he hurriedly stuffs it back into ... Well. He stuffs it into one of these boxes. He can't be sure it's 'back' where it came from.

(Ajax) "I would be most appreciative if you would - I wouldn't such a rare piece, with such beauty and sentimental value, to suffer accidental damage on my way home to drink from it..." Ajax says to Hallah, one arm curved and across from his body, statuesque in his grace at a moment in time when there's absolutely no reason to have or employ such grace. He's just built this way. Satisfied with the customer service, his attention drifts in a haze of post-purchase satisfaction under half lidded eyes over to Selene and her interaction with the young man, Danny. The drifting papers begin to unlock something in his mind, like a forgotten purpose, his smile fading somewhat into a fugue, and his lips slightly parting. It is dawning on him, but hasn't quite dawned, and it might take a little while to dawn as his neurons strain like John Henry driving railroad spikes to activate true cognition.

(Hallah) Hallah smiles to Freya as she draws by her booth too! She looks over the vintage clothing at her booth if thinking about what look good on Freya, before deciding that anything would. She picks out though a white 1960s gogo dance dress that is short and has wide bell sleeves and holds it up for her. "This would make make your legs look great, not that you need any help." Freya could wear a potato sack and look lovely.

(Laurel) As soon as Laurel sees Ajax buying her sign-ruse and digging for his wallet, she gives a wink to Hallah and starts packing up. The ragabash's job is done at //this// stall and so she's off to find her next victim, or beneficiary. The fluttering papers are enough to bring Laurel over to her tribemate's side. "Found anything //cool//, yet, Selene?"

(Selene)

Selene isn't that bad. She's just one of those weirdos from out in the swamps or something. She tilts her head up slightly, saying as she does, "Yeah?" in a tone suggestive of 'I'm interested but not like, committed.' She reaches forwards to pick up one of the poof-ball men.

Or, not quite pick up the poof ball man. Her hand hovers. Cups a little, in case of the wind. Her eyes run over the papers for a moment. "Still though, this stuff looks in good shape, he have to clear out some computer business went under? Wait, no, this logo... ugh, where's it FROM..."

Laurel approaches. "Yeah, look at this, isn't this just the shit you'd need for that art car you were talking about? Tell me who this logo is. I can't remember."

(Hallah) Hallah seems clueless that people are investing something. Her focus seems mostly on making sales. When she sees Gaians gathering around Kaatz booth she murmurs something about her both having better stuff! This is not really her finest moment.

(Freya, When you do look over there, there are logos at the booth of Danny's things that are /too/ familiar. The company color scheme of the logos from afar are the same color scheme as the barrels. It's a very distinctive, specific shade of green and gold that looks suspiciously similar.)

(Laurel) "I was looking for local logos," Laurel nods along with Selene. "Car's got a whole lot of real estate to fill up after all. a lot more than a bike. But want them to have some sort of meaning, you know? These got meaning?" She turns her attention back to Danny even as she pokes one of the poofs.

(Medina) The poof ball man has googly eyes and big felt feet and hands, clutching an American flag, wearing a white hard hat. The tag says 'I pledge allegiance to "Make it CLICK"! above the SII of the Smith International logo, and 'DRILCO: A Division of Smith International'. It's adorable, and it's exactly the sort of thing you give a kid to plant seeds of aspirations and romanticized ideals of what this company means.

Danny holds silent for a short moment, then haltingly says, "I think it's promotional stuff, I don't know. My uncle's not around to explain it. But I think they give those out a lot."

(Ajax) Finally the dots were lining up. Paper, Drilco promotional. The half-caught whispers and visions and images finally scored a hit on Ajax's gray matter. Papers. As if a man possessed, he fishes out his wallet and joins Selene and Laurel there. "I think," he says, taking on faith that he must have the right person or at least, its approximation, "that I am here to buy those documents," he says dumbly, clearly hoping to strike a deal.

(Freya) Freya wanders around Hallah's booth, looking at this and that, her eyes glancing around now and again. She smiles a bit as she moves to the next booth, looking over it a bit as well, then she crosses the little path to look at the booth next to Danny's. Watching from the corner of her eye at those around it. She finishes off her funnel cake and puts the plate in a near by trash can. She begins to wander over to Danny's booth as well. Checking out the stuff he has sitting there. She was just about to say something when Ajax comes up and offers to buy the box of papers from Danny. She stays quiet, and continues to look over the other stuff thats for sale.

(Selene) "She's got this plan, glue an entire fuckin' village to the hood of a Buick," Selene tells Danny. "Like just ranks and ranks of these little fluffyball things. I'm like first of all, you're gonna ruin your visibility --?" And then Ajax is approaching. Selene sidles over, granting him Space, while looking plausibly surprised. Perhaps even as if she does not Know this big white guy who showed up. To Laurel, she says, "Though wasn't that Smith people in the news? They're not the sausage people, are they?" Her eyes also cut towards Freya as she joins them. Ish. Not that they're together, obviously.

(Laurel) "You don't need to see when you're doing //art//!" Laurel loudly proclaims and picks up one of the puffballs to wiggle at Selene. "Smith is... oil people right?" Did she know that before or just adding two and two from the little banners about the drilling. "Your uncle didn't like... die on the job and they gave you all this swag as a consolation prize as that would suck extra."

(Medina) Danny listens to Selene with a guarded smile that starts to warm. "That would be kinda' funny," he admits. "Uh, I have..." He looks around at his things. "Well, hm."

But then Ajax arrives. "I... I don't know, man," Danny says to Ajax, shrinking back again. This man is no warrior fit for Valhalla. He'd just started to cool with Selene, but Ajax has him shrinking away. He stubs out his cigarette against the side of that folger's can like it owes him fuckin' rent money, nervous energy displaced into his hands, and he says, "Some other people were asking about those earlier. I told them five bucks a box, but..." He glances toward the main walkway again.

His face falls at the question about 'in the news'. "Oh - yeah. Yeah," he admits with a nod. "They were. I don't work for them. My uncle did through um, through um..."

The young man is clearly nervous: he puts that stubbed out cigarette right back to his lips and sucks on nothing but dead heat. He flicks it into the folger's can with a wince. "Well anyway, uh, he had all this stuff lying around and I thought, it'd be a shame to just throw it all away." He glances again to the walkway, as if he expects even more company.

(Everyone rolls Perception + Alertness to various successes.)

(Medina) It's an odd thing to have to just sell at a flea market, but give the overwhelmed state of Danny, talking about a man in past tense and getting rid of all his things -- and all that that implies -- he probably doesn't know what's there.

Punch card grids on a time sheet. Training certificates - one for hazardous materials handling. A couple of useless odds and ends like tax documents - but also old pay stubs for a certain Rudolph Kaatz, working for Emergency Industrial Services. An insurance card in a zip loc baggie taped to some benefits enrollment form. One thing that really catches the eye is handwritten notes in margins of some report: "Do NOT file with OSHA."

There are also photos of work crews. Somebody's birthday party at a plant. Somebody clowning around after some kind of meeting.

(Medina) Laurel and Ajax notice something else - an unfamiliar face, but someone who was there when they got here. There when Hallah was talking about Esther and the depression glass, and still there now that they're talking to Danny. They must be truly mesmerized byt he ceramic novelty salt and pepper shakers that are on the next stall over's wares, because they've picked that same set up for what feels like it should the fifth time now. Not that anyone's counting, but there's something manufactured about the way they peruse the booth, and disquieting about how they haven't fucking moved yet.

(Laurel) Like a compass towards due north, Laurel's hand goes right towards that paper that says "Do NOT file with OSHA". She doesn't read it all, not right here, right now, but definitely has a secure hold on it. "I think I could use some paper mache supplies, yeah? What about you guys?"

(Selene)

"Sure," Selene answers Laurel, before saying to Danny, her tone kind, "I think that's a good thing to do, you know? It's more respectful. You're clearing out the stuff you gotta clear out but you can put that money to something else. I imagine your uncle, he'd have wanted you to have something. And now it's gonna be part of an art car," a glance at Laurel, "you better be committing here."

After this Selene gets out her wallet. "So I didn't see a price tag..."

(Ajax) At a crossroads where he's between lying for the sake of his mission, Ajax is hung up for a moment between struggling against some really stupid internal principles in the way of successfully acquiring this box of important Drilco stuff, and noticing guilelessly that those two guys over by the people at Hallah's stall, he breathes an internal sigh of relief as Selene steps in to be a hero. He didn't have to lie about his pretenses, or even clear the air. He puts his hands up and puts his wallet away as he demonstrates that he's not really in the running for buying that stuff, while Selene handles it flawlessly. What a star.

Following his impulses, then, his head turns towards the stall. His attention is squarely on The Watchers. He doesn't intend to be menacing, but the laser focus changes the dynamic considerably.

(Freya)

Freya moves closer to Danny's booth. She's the real pretty blonde thats built like a brick shit house. She tends to attract attention even if she doesn't want too. She looks over the lighters and shirts as she moves in closer, her eyes looking to Selene as she offers to buy the box of papers. She still doesn't say anything though. She just offers a charming smile like she is just browsing, like so many other people do.

(Hallah) Hallah is here happily selling hand crafted stuffies, homemade dresses and vintage glassware. She peeks curiously over to Danny's booth and to the others and the pile of paperwork that is likely being purchased.

(Medina) "Oh, no," Danny shakes his head, belatedly answering Laurel as that question gets past the mental traffic lights of everything going on around him and the swell of attention at his booth. His own eyes flit over to the man at the adjacent booth looking at ceramic novelty kitchen nick knacks, lingering worriedly on him, before he looks to Laurel. "He didn't die on the job, no, uh, he ... Stopped working there." He draws in a centering breath, then continues. "But then he uh, he disappeared. And you know, um." He forces out an uneasy smile, then finds his mental wall of talking about it. "Well anyway - no, he didn't die in that explosion. He cleaned up after that explosion, and then, uh -- " His eyes flit again off toward the man, and back to Laurel. "...You know, he was an alcoholic."

You almost wonder if he isn't about to blink twice.

Price tag, price tag. "Oh, I don't know, I"m not sure I can sell that, actually, what is that?" He leans forward to get a good look at it. "Sorry, I was in such a hurry to clear out his garage before Aunt Nancy put it all in a garbage bag."

Freya definitely catches the young man's attention. He is, after all, not blind. If only standing in the background radiation of the Rage hadn't sucked all the rizz right out of him. "Howdy," he says, and he shoots her a distracted smile. "Let me know uh, if you want anything. Those lighters /are/ really cool. I don't know how he got all this stuff."

One man perusing nick-nacks, who is hatefully almost as handsome as Ajax, trying to steal his 'do with that faux-effortless Mediterranean tousle. Clearly, it's why he's getting the stink-eye, that hair is too fabulous to be /shared/. It's a man in his thirties, fit, with a corporate edge to himself thanks to the tucked-polo he wears with his jeans. His leather brown belt is plain and has nothing on it. He wears a digital wrist watch. Another man among the two lingerers has been haggling with the booth owner and wringing out the very edges of his patience. That one keeps sparing glances over while the other ostensibly listens in, and the latter makes eye contact with the Silver Fang.

(Selene)

Selene is willing to bear this burden. This horror. This great weight... of lying to a white dude. At least it's for a cause. Her eyes flick towards Freya -- "Oh, yeah, shit, you take a look, I was gonna buy 'em out, hah. You too, man," that to Ajax, and while facing that direction she briefly grins at Hallah.

After a deep breath, she says, "I get you. Oh this? It's like old bills and shit, Matisse du Casso here's gonna make some kinda... paper machie chains or whatever, representing the burden of paying the bills, which I guess I do get," she continues towards Danny. "Look though, how many boxes you got here -- how about... twenty-five?" There we go, rubber hitting the road.

I am going to have to rob somebody to make this good, thinks Selene, *again*

(Medina) Lingering eye contact. This person, whoever he may be, is not deterred by the Rage. Even from this distance, he shouldn't be holding a predator's stare. After that moment of tense silence, just a heartbeat's skipping second, he flashes the man a gentlemanly grin and looks back to the squat vendor to resume his conversation. "Right, but are these paracord bracelets edible?" Or whatever shit he's saying.

(Laurel) Laurel shifts that Not Osha File she was holding so that the reverse side is up and covering a bit of the other files. "Can't be very much. It's just scrap paper. Like CVS receipts and shit. uncle must have been some packrat. But it'll make a great pinata. Car. Pinata car."

(Selene)

"I liked the chains of the bills idea," Selene tells Laurel, interstitially.

(Ajax) Ajax just can't wrench his attention away from those guys. "It's something like that," he says quietly, and, without lowering his gaze, gets out some of the money he'd been passed and hands it over to Selene -- or Laurel, who'dever take the making-whole cash that it took to handle this transaction. Hiding that they weren't together had fallen by the wayside to him. "Look, I've got something I need to take care of - I've got to go get my glass family heirloom now that she's wrapped it up. This ought to be enough," he says distractedly.

From that point forward, he decides to let his instincts and impulses take the wheel. Caution and pretense to the wind, on the heels of having been followed and responding to the remote but unmistakeable challenge from across the way, Ajax walks slowly back to Hallah's stall, taking a risk.

He ends up right in front of their gentleman. Like, a step inside talking distance, creating a sort of macho provocation situation that is less from bullying and more from discarding all of the pretenses that social situations in public impose like a weight from the top of one's head.

The Silver Fang raises his chin a little. This is probably the sharpest and with the most cut-through clarity that anyone has ever seen him had. "Must we?" he asks, with everything implicit that might entail when it comes to conflict and war. He believes he knows, generally, who he's talking to, and he believes he is known by that grin.

He intends to head them off more confrontationally so that Selene, Laurel & Freya can accomplish what he'd initially set out to do.

(Hallah) Hallah seems a black kitten knit plushie that is wearing a purple knit witches hat. She peeks over to Danny's booth once again, seemingly curious. She gives Ajax a smile when he returns. She then looks to the gentlemen he stopped near. She sucks in a soft breath and smiles again, but the smile is a little strained or maybe confused.

(Laurel) Laurel holds that prize box of files a bit tighter even as Selene or rather Ajax is paying for them. "We can probably do a chain of bills on top of the pinata. And then all the little puffball men." It's gonna be some car.

(Medina) "Matisse do what now?" Danny smiles, his gaze flitting briefly over to the stunning blonde, then back to the Arizonan. He ends up pulling out his pack of cigarettes to filter out another Red as he listens to the women. "Oh, yeah. There's a lot of stuff, you know how, you're supposed to hold onto your documents for ten years or the IRS will kill you or something, uh, I really didn't have a lot of time to go through it all. So I can't give you /all/ his stuff, I think, ..." He frowns on that thought. "Well then again, if he's dead, then it's not like they can arrest him. Would they arrest me?" He seems discouraged. He snaps himself out of it when she prompts him with twenty five bucks. "Well, Nancy was going to throw all this away anyway," he says, as he comes around all too easily, gifts of the Ancestors. As Laurel ostensibly fidgets with her favorite new manila folder, he barely notices.

"Oh, yeah, um, he was a pack rat. I did throw away a whole lot of receipts from the Flying J and stuff like that." He turns to go a-rummaging to get Selene and Laurel their $25 worth.

Then, at Hallah's booth, as these two men peruse her depression glass and her totchkes, fucking Ajax just sidles up next to the man with similar hair in a manner that might as well've been like fuckin' picking the exactly next over urinal in a perfectly empty god damn restroom.

"Hello." That 'hello' is charged with a mirrored sentiment of 'must we'. "Do I know you?" He looks to Hallah, picking up some handblown glass statuette of a smiling pair of frogs, attemptin gto dismiss Ajax. He looks to Hallah: "Hey, this is nice, I know someone who'd like this. How much?"

(Freya)

Freya looks to Danny and smiles at him sweetly. She speaks with a southern draw that most around here talk with. "Well how much do you want for this lighter here, honey?" she asks him, just picking one of the random lighters up off the table and giving the top of it a flick, and rolling the striker. "I'm pretty sure I got a flint and lighter fluid at home, and its never a bad thing to have a lighter on ya incase its needed." she chuckles almost flirtatiously at him.

(Hallah) Hallah looks to Ajax for a moment as if torn between shooing him away so she can sell these men stuff, trying to sell him more stuff or well cluing in that he is up to some family business so to speak. She ends up doing something else entirely, but this only because man picks up the hand blown frogs statuette. "Ooo." She says. "Good eye, that is Moreno, Italy." She muses. It may or may not be, but its in the general style at least. Most hand blow glass of good quality come from Moreno Italy. "That is $50." She says, which is kind of a lot and yet kind of not. It is cheaper than Moreno goes for in high class boutiques by 100s of dollars and yet more expensive than most hand blow glass goes for at a flea market at least currently anyways.

(Selene)

"Oh, that's good," says Selene to Laurel, even as she's inwardly perceiving that Ajax is moving off at someone she isn't looking at -- "that makes more sense. Probably won't just get run over and fall off, though I didn't know if that was gonna be like the idea of the project, getting liberated by, I dunno, someone tailgating you --"

But Danny is getting out another death-stick and talking. Selene gets out her wallet (faded orange-brown leather) and starts to riffle through it. "Receipts like that are part of things too. Oh, and they can't, no, that's just gonna be payroll stuff... they already have that shit on computers."

Selene *does* look a little startled - just a little - when Freya opens her lips and Southern honey pours out. She glances back to Laurel. Her face speaks clearly: Did YOU know that?"

(Ajax) "I thought you must know me," Ajax answers pointedly after the fellow asks Hallah for some pricing, and Hallah answering, a beat after. While he breaks out in a smile, shifting back into the already-shorn paper thin pretense of goodwill amidst strangers, that smile does not reach his eyes, and carries with it the menace of the Garou. "You and your associate seem to have been looking in my direction over there for some time." He gestures with an open hand briefly at the other fellow. His voice is charged with righteous certainty, girded with brimming overconfidence, and straining at every button over the straightjacket of common decency and good behavior that was keeping the raw and visceral challenge from spilling out into the market. "But I have sometimes been told I get paranoid in markets like this. I think it would be good if I was wrong about what I saw. I think you should have a very nice day -- and I hope those little frogs make someone else very happy, sir." He moves to turn and rejoin the group, but slowly, as if he could be convinced back very easily to continue that conversation. He hopes that's clear enough for Hallah what might be going on family business wise.

(Laurel) "I'll just you know, haul these away for you..." Laurel says even as the payment is still processing between hands. In fact she'll take that box and turn to start walking away as soon as it seems that deal is actually done. A little whistle as she walks her way out. Eventually, whenever Selene makes her own exit, she'll probably find the box in her truck.... maybe even with the ragabash still flipping through some of the files.

(Medina) "Oh sure," Danny tells Freya, brightening up when she talks to him. "That, uh, it's a zippo, I think! Lemme see?" One thing about Danny is that at least he's trying to be earnest instead of fuck her over or impress her - he really doesn't know. He leans over and looks. Sure enough, it's a zippo, and he gives her a pretty fair price for the era: "Nine bucks, or if you don't have change I can throw in a shirt or something. Do you uh," he looks her over, half excuse to appreciate the view, and half upsell. "I do think it's real cute on a girl to wear oversized stuff. I know you didn't ask, but, you know, it'd look good on you." He fiddles around under the table to get Selene her boxes, and Freya her things. Selene pays $25 for the lot of papers and he throws in the little fuzzy green men. Then he pulls one back. "Wait, wait, I want to keep one of these." He turns around and sets his little dude down on his chair to join his folgers can.

(Freya)

Freya smiles brightly at Danny and reaches into her pocket to fish out a ten dollar bill and hand it over to him. "Well I got a 10. You don't have to throw in a shirt iffin you don't wanna, darlin'." she tells him with a wink, and soft giggle. Anyone that knows her, knows this isn't how she acts either, but hey.. gotta use what ya got. She looks over the lighter once again as its handed back to her, glancing slide long towards Hallah's booth.

(Medina) Meanwhile, at Hallah's stall with Ajax...

The fellow keeps his attention pointedly on Hallah for the imposition of Ajax's presence, notably undeterred by the Galliard unlike half of the people here. As someone's stroller wheels rattle loudly behind them, passing by, the stranger's lips press together into a thin line of tested patience with Ajax, but it's lifted at its edges for Hallah, a patient smile. He pulls out his wallet and puts it away. Fifty dollars? No big deal - three crisp twenties answer the call. "Alright. So I need to come up with ten dollars more of a bargain, hmm?"

"You got nice hair," says the man, as to why he's been looking in his direction. A scoff, and then he looks at the guy. He opens his mouth to have a retort, but when Ajax moves, he's wiser than to give him more ground or information by speaking. Instead, he continues to drop eaves from his vantage point, perusing Hallah's curation of fun little things.

(Hallah) Hallah looks over the sixty dollars. That is sixty dollars that could could keep her hungry wolf boyfriend in chicken parm! She peeks over to Ajax, maybe picking up that he is up to something. Still she doesn't give that away with a nod. Instead she smiles to the man with three twenties. "Well..." She says happily. "If his a gift for a a girl, she might like the frog sundress to go with?" She says, pointing toward a leaf-green hand made sundress with sleeves of green ribbons and frog patches sewn on it. It is cute in a quirky sort of way. In way the glass frogs are bargain and in a way not. They are not artist signed, but they are cute and hand blow without damage. So the price is okay, but its not like an amazing deal or anything.

(Medina) "Well it /is/ cute," Danny says, missing Selene's shock in the wake of speaking to Nordic Beauty. He sifts around, and he glances up at her and back at the selection, finding an astrobright white t-shirt that says '20 years of excellence' with the Smith International logo. "You know, you're real toned," he says, not shy that he's admiring her. "And I really do think, toned girls look great in loose clothing because when you move, you know, uh,..." He lets a laugh escape him. "Well, it's fun to see the shape underneath when you move." He folds the shirt with more care than the others got when he threw it all out here on his table, and he sets it on the same edge as Freya stands, leaving it there for her to take or leave. If he had his shit together like Hallah he might have a better system of tracking change, but what he has instead is a Jansport pencil pouch with the clear plastic window stuffed full of wads of cash that have been passably organized into rubber banded bundles. He pulls out a one dollar bill to hand off to Freya as the shirt lingers on her side of the table.

Then as Selene assures him and starts to riffle through her brown leather wallet, he gives her a small smile. "Yeah, I guess they do... And really, uh, ..." He lets out a huff of a sigh and admits, "I'm kind of hoping it bites Nancy in the ass that she's making us get rid of all this stuff, so, who cares. What kinda car is it?"

(Selene)

Selene starts rationalizing everything, which just happens to mean that she is in fact putting utility bills from five years ago on top of shit that looks actually useful. Sorry, future searchers. She is pretty sure Ajax over there is intercepting the Suicide Squad.

"Oh yeah of course. Shit, I feel bad, here's an extra five - oh -"

She leans in a little to say, quietly, "And if you're in a rough spot, you see her over there with the candy corn plushes? Yeah, you can probably chat with her, she knows folks... sort of a community group thing, you can just come be with people, no pressure, if you want. (She's my cousin. Yeah I got a lot of cousins, my aunts were people pleasers)"

(Ajax - Ajax doesn't think often. But when he does, it's about dos equis. And about the witnesses, the inherent chaos of a fight, how it can go wrong. But what he does have control over is where Selene and Laurel go, because the risk is that guy /following/.')

(Medina) Selene can't help but think, those glances over towards Hallah's booth and the man aren't just a pattern. At first, maybe, they were easy to dismiss as avoidant little glimpses here and there from a young man who has too much on his emotional plate. But really, it's always in the direction of Hallah's stall. In the direction of the man Ajax saw fit to talk to. When Selene leans in to quietly share if he's in a rough spot, what she sees is the fear of someone who doesn't want to be seen. He double blinks. He pastes on a manufactured smile, a polite one. "Oh, I, I - don't want to drag anybody else into my personal life, it's.... These things, um, people die. All the time. You just gotta... Get through it when it's your turn." Pause. "I mean, to mourn. Not to die." A nervous laugh.

Danny /did/ mis-speak. He doesn't believe he's going to die, it's no clandestine call for help against some would-be inevitable assassin. But he's abundantly aware of the man at Hallah's booth, and he's categorically reluctant to reach out and let anybody else get pulled into whatever mess. He glances down at the boxes. "So um, these, I think they're all just tax documents," he says, as he pushes them forward. They're not. They're very not. Danny might not have a full idea of what he's got, but there's a sharpness of intent at the specific box he pushed forward. There's something in /that/ box. "So I'm okay with getting rid of them."

(Freya)

Freya takes the offered shirt from Danny and blushes at his comment. "Well thanks, darlin. I appreciate it." she slides the lighter into her pocket and moves to walk away from Danny's booth. She glances over to Hallah and nods her head to her with a smile, before offering a friendly smile to the others that are around as well. She is just some hot girl that bought a lighter and got a free tshirt out of the deal. She moves down the pathway, looking to move on through the flea market of take off either one, she eventually vanishes into the crowd.

(Ajax) One last look between the fellow, who he's getting bad vibes off of, and Hallah, and Ajax is marching back to the group. He watches Freya and Laurel break off, and puts a hand on Selene's shoulder and speaks quietly. "These men are going to follow us with those documents. Wherever we take them - don't take them home...or somewhere even more sensitive. Before you make it to your vehicle, you need to lose them. If they follow, you, I will intercept them. But you, and Laurel, have got to lose them." [Gaian] Who Me? Freya is out and will be back later..

(Selene)

"I'll go through and rub out the personal numbers and such before she gets her hands on them," Selene tells Danny, raising her head and looking him in the eyes for a moment.

There is something behind those eyes that isn't normal and it isn't perhaps what Danny would consider natural. And it is, perhaps, expecting too much for a man in grief and tension to infer a great deal, but Selene hopes, at least, she's putting across that --

He's not their prey; not /their/ prey at all.

And with that, she smiles and straightens up, hoisting them up and carrying both boxes with her.

"Understood, Mr. Kent," Selene says. "That's who you were interfering with? Tell me how many if you can." She doesn't look back.

(Ajax) Ajax holds up two fingers for her. "That I saw."

(Medina) The stranger that Ajax had confronted continues to peruse. "You sure have an eye for intersting finds," he tells Hallah, as he glances periodically Selene's way. His eyes linger just a touch too long on Ajax, and Hallah has a front row seat for it. He looks back to the woman and gives her a quick smile. "Although truly, I think I'd rather you just keep the change!" He takes a step back, and he very well may be departing, as Freya moves off.

Behind him, normalcy. A woman dressed for the heat pushes past, dragging two kids by the hand, and the smell of street tacos drifts through on the breeze with cilantro, lime and char that cuts through the dust and diesel for just a moment before the wind shifts again. He turns off to leave...

Meanwhile, Ajax, Selene, and Danny. Moments before the Fang shows up, Danny looks to Selene. "Hah, alright. Well, thanks." He keeps eye contact. There's soething there - something that makes ihm tilt his head, and whether or not he gets it, at the very least the young man is surely coming away with /something/ communicated. Solidarity at the very least. "Well, have fun papering up your car, I hope that it looks cool..." Danny straightens up when Ajax shows up. He holds his breath, then retreats into folding clothes. His glance over to the young man as he whispers a directive to his acquaintance makes ihm raise his eyebrows, then very obviousy dedicate his attention to his wares, leaving /that/ circus to a totally different cadre of monkeys that are /not him/.

(Hallah) Hallah seems just fine with keeping the change and she smiles to the man, nodding in response. She leaves the booth int he hands of her little sister and Chavi and Marion's ward who shows up. "I need to use the Ladies room." She says softly and after the man leaves. She then will try if she can follow him!

(Hallah) Chavi is a little younger than Hallah, but still in her early twenties. She has brown hair and brown eye and is also petite. She is as good at selling things as Hallah, but she at least keeps things from being stolen (mostly anyways!)!

(Hallah) Hallah grabs a white linen shawl with a subtle design for roses and raps it over herself. She also takes a pink sun hat that watches the pink roses on the shawl. These are all from her own booth and she starts to dart after the man. She sees the license plate and tries to remember that! Is there any chance she is parked nearby? Probably not, but if there is....

"You leave the land of taxidermied racoon asses you can drink out of and nunchucks and cb radios and zapatos para damas, pull onto the feeder road, and for a while, you see the stubborn shadow of the Nissan. And while Selene is new to Houston, she's got good instincts! So you take the scenic route. A full lap of the loop and you do a little rope a dope with the traffic, slide through a tangle of side streets, get some kangaroo tacos or a poboy or whatever, and take way too much fucking forever - you notice by then you've lost your shadow, but caution is always something you can never have too much of. By the time you make it back you're confident you've lost these fools."