Let it be said that Ashley Gallagher was a patient man, but he was by no means a saint. The woman had sauntered into his office, a flurry of purpose and promised information, but it had been half an hour based solely on how pissed off he was becoming and she hadn't said a word. She seemed perfectly content to simply mill about his office like a caged animal, looking timidly behind every corner as if something were lurking and ready to pounce. He decided to start simple. "What's your name?" It had its desired effect. She snapped to attention almost immediately, her actions once awkward and timid now languid and comfortable, as if she had donned a gilded mask. She seated herself atop his desk, across from him.
"People call me Emerald." She murmured, toying with the finger of her glove.
"Of course they do." He was a detective. He had not failed to notice the varying qualities of her that all pointed in the same direction and that was, unsurprisingly, the seedy club on the seedy street that only occupied his time, regrettably, when he was working. It had become painfully apparent when she had shucked her coat and stood in front of him in scant enough to be proper. "You said you had information for me, Emerald. Now I'm a detective and I'm here to help, but if you're just here to waste my time I'll be a very angry detective."
"I do," She paused, "Have information that is. I'm just figuring out if you're the person I want to share it with."
"By all means, take your time. Pat me down, give me a survey while you're at it. It's not as if I spend my days fighting the crime that plagues this very city each and every moment of each and every day." He punctuated his sentence with the flick of a cigarette because, regardless of Richard's qualms with him smoking in their mutual office, he couldn't give a damn.
Her painted lips curled up into a half-cocked smirk. "You're a funny one, then. Color me surprised. I thought all of you were the same."
"All of you, huh? And you expect I have, what," He spread his hands. "No preconceptions about your choice in career path?"
"I'm sure you do, whether or not I care is a different question."
"-Hey, what's your game here? You come in looking 'bout as small as a mouse with the timidity to match and now here you are acting like you own the place. I have to be honest I'm not sure what you want from me and it's getting on my nerves.“
“Would you have honestly addressed my problems first if I hadn’t been wearing that ‘little old me’ persona?”
He exhaled a gust of smoke in response. “Touché. You still haven’t told me why you’re here so the way I see it, you’re still wasting my precious time.”
“You seem trustworthy enough, I suppose. What if I told you I had information on one of your three big bad gangs playing cowboys and indians on your turf?” She turned her back on him, “You do consider it your turf, right? Adorable.”
“Now don’t play me for a fool. Everyone knows who owns this town, sweetheart, and it certainly ain’t me. Now what do you have?” He kept the eager tinge out of his voice to the best of his ability, taking a long drag from his cigarette to calm his sudden leap of heart.
“The Townleys? Ever heard of them?”
“Of course. You’re leading me on, darling. Throw me a bone.”
She turned to grin at him. “Woof.” At his disparaging look she rolled her green eyes with great effort and hopped off his table, spinning to splay her hands atop its edge as if to emphasize her point. “The bar I dance at? They own the place. And let it be said my boss has a looser tongue than some of the girls there.” Her wink and entendre were not lost on him, but she continued. “If you were to… I don’t know, pay a visit every once in a while, perhaps once a week? Less? I’d make it worth your while.”
Ashley tapped his cigarette on the edge of his ash-tray, effectively sitting on the very edge of his metaphorical and literal seat. She was dragging him along and he was happily letting her. “Why can’t you just bring the information here, darling? That’s quite a walk.”
“It would be very suspicious if one of the dancers at a mob-owned bar made regular trips to the Police Station. Now, if a weary, not-so-handsome cop were to stop by the bar and look for a little beautiful company, who could blame him?”
“You’d make a fair point if it was less contemptuous.”
“Oh don’t lie, it’s the best offer you’ve gotten in quite a while. I couldn’t help but notice how busy you cats are these days.”
“Yeah, yeah. And what do you get out of it?”
“Let’s just say my pure little heart would just be tickled to help out the community.”
It was in that moment that Ashley Gallagher, Vice Detective of the NYPD, wished that he’d just taken the smoke break.
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