Service With A Smile

Starring:

Edgar_icon.gif Madison_icon.gif

Summary: Just a typical day at the office.

Date It Happened: December 5th, 2001

Log Title Service With a Smile


Wolfram and Hart

The camera opens and pans on the halls of Wolfram and Hart. Since all of the buildings look exactly alike, down to the carpeting, this is the LA branch. Some floors are quieter than others, with the typical hum and buzz of a legal office. The floor in question is one that happens to be louder than some. There's some screaming going on. A male voice, screaming, pleading for his life, well family jewels to be precise. Ordinarily client lawyer meetings are conducted behind closed (soundproof) doors. This meeting? It's an example to other clients meeting. The example? Pay your attorney fees.

"Hokahd! Watch the spatter man! You gonna get blood on my new suit!" That booming, deep baritone belongs to one Madison Taylor, attorney for Wolfram & Hart. He's currently working over a Mr. Hokahd, a scrawny demon who thought he could skip a payment. "You spatter my suit and I'm taking that remaining eye of yours!"

Though screaming might be relatively common practice at the firm, there are certain individuals who have never really grown fond of what it brings to the ambiance of the place. One of those people is not going to take it any more, at least not in this particular instance. There are far too many Pressing Matters that need to be attended to, and Edgar Montero just cannot bring himself to concentrate with all the ungodly shrieking going on. An office door is flung open and the man makes brisk tracks towards the source of the noise, his mouth thinned into a line of annoyance-

-But only until he makes it to the door of Madison's office. At that point, Edgar is all smiles and knowing-grin, the man leaning in to rest his shoulder on the doorframe. "Maddie. Didn't I talk to you the other day about all the noise you make? It's hard for everyone else to keep their mind on things. Maybe you could be doing this in the garage." Smilesmile. Smile. "Hello, Mr. Hokahd. Doing well?"

Madison shrugs out of his suit jacket and lays it down out of the way before stepping over to where Hokahd is chained to a chair. Upside down. Bleeding profusely from open wounds. The chair was thoughtfully positioned over a sheet of plastic tarp. Sure they have the best cleaning contracts for carpeting and upholstery in this dimension, but that just takes time.. and Madison's firmly convinced you still just can't get it all out completely. In the man's hand is his letter opener, which looks more like a sparkly jeweled dagger. "Hey Eddie my man," Madison says cheerily at his fellow attorney. "Hokahd, you didn't answer Eddie, and that's just damn rude," he says before giving the man a painful nudge with his foot. The answer made by Hokahd is nothing more than a pained cry. "That's better."

Edgar keeps that wide smile on his face without so much as flinching at what's going on inside the office. "Seriously, though. Can't you gag him or something? Cut out his tongue? Cauterize something? It's a distraction and I'm working on this month's import inventory, and you know how they get if anything's out of place." He tucks his hands into the pockets of his suitjacket, twisting his weight back and forth on one foot. "It might teach your friend there some courtesy, too. You know I don't approve of bad manners."

"I thought about cutting out his tongue as payment, but y'know they still make noise. The gurgling gets on my last nerve." Madison waves a hand at Edward, "But fine, I get the point, and I think Hokahd here gets my point too. Pay your damn bill! I ain't providing my services for free. I took your eye and I just may take Eddie's suggestion here and take your tongue." Just where is the eye after removal? Based on where it's stuck to the wall, Madison smacked it with a five iron from his little indoor putting green he has in the office. "I don't approve of bad manners either, but I gotta get my monthly quota in. Part of my job title y'know?" Not that Madison has a problem with meeting quotas, and the month just started. He's an overachiever, what can he say? "I'm almost done with our friend here anyway. I think he understands where he messed up." Madison then clubs the man's leg with one of his oversized hands. Normally this would be a friendly clap, but the man just has pure brute strength.

With the promise that the horrible noises will stop, Edgar's mood lifts even further, assuming that is even possible. He beams at Madison, completely and happily ignoring the eyeball half-splatted on the wall. Any blood can be painted over, and it's not like it's his office that has the bloodstain problem. "Poor guy. Maybe we should send him on down to accounting so he can take out a loan to pay you with." And get even deeper into debt with the firm, because that is always fun to watch. He watches placidly as his fellow lawyer continues to terrorize the poor demon and, while waiting, lifts one hand again to scratch at the corner of his beard. "You've also got plenty of month to do this in. Requisition a room to do this sort of thing in and we'll all be happier."

"That'll work for me. I don't care what he's gotta sell, I just wanna get paid." Hey, the legal business is cutthroat, what can we say? "Y'know, why didn't I think of that before? This just upsets my little pets when people set to screamin'. You hear that Hokahd? Your screamin' scared lil' Chuckles n'Giggles, and I really don't like to see 'em upset." Madison's mainly being sarcastic here, but who's going to really question him when he has sheer size as an intimidation factor? Taking his letter opener, he slices off Hokahd's bonds and shoves him down onto the floor and into his own blood. "Get your miserable, scrawny ass outta my office. You got twelve .. make that ten hours.. to cough up my money.. Or I'm taking more of your anatomy." He gives the demon a boot to the ass towards the door as the sign to get the hell out. Madison then settles his heavy frame into the chair behind his desk and uses some wet wipes to clean his hands. "Normally, I do this sorta mess elsewhere. I just lost my temper this time. Hokahd made it all personal."

Edgar leans in further towards the doorframe when Hokahd scrambles up - partly - and more or less crawls his way out of the office. The lawyer tilts his head back to look after the fleeing debtor until the demon is out of sight, after which he simply saunters into the office, avoiding any patches of blood with careful sidesteps and walking around the tarp in its entirety. "There are ways to solve your problems without resorting to violence, you know. Maybe you should attend a seminar." Unlike most people in their right minds, Edgar is completely unintimidated by Madison. He's unintimidated by most people. "And how are your other clients doing? Surely he's the only one who hasn't paid you. They should know better by now."

"Seminar? What the Hell you smoking? Seminar.." Madison scowls as he looks over at Edgar as if he'd done sprouted a halo and angel wings. "Check the business cards. 'Personal injury'. I ain't up in your work, so don't get all up in mine." He reaches across the desk for his humidor and withdraws a fine cigar, prepping it for smoking. "They're all paying up in a timely fashion but that poor sucker. So I'm gettin' loaned out to other departments." He doesn't ask, he just does what he's told without question by the Senior Partners. Puffing out a cloud of blue tinged smoke, he leans back in his chair even as it creaks in protest. "You know I don't just go after those that get behind. Although I do like to do a little favor for Viv down in AR from time to time. I scratch her back and she.. well.. let's just say we got a deal going."

Edgar wanders over to stop next to the desk, perching on its very edge and crossing his legs at the ankles as he settles in to his chosen spot. "Just because you're the size of a barbarian doesn't mean you have to act like one, Maddie. You're better than that. As for Mr. Hokahd, I'm sure there are ways to make him pay if he doesn't find adequate funding. Plenty of magic users need preserved demon parts, and you could probably get a good price for that eye." He frowns slightly and glances at the window, getting an eyeful of the cityscape before he returns his attention to his fellow lawyer. "That's disgusting. I'm sure our superiors would approve."

"Hey, I'm just sticking to my contract and what I'm paid to do by the man up on high." Madison says around his cigar as he spreads his massive hands. "Oh yeah, the eye thing," he says as he takes the stogie out of his mouth, "That was just me getting a bit carried away. Maybe it can be salvaged. Tell a warlock that it's pre-mashed or whatever for his convenience." The cigar is waved dismissively before finding its way back to his mouth for another puff. "It's a new service we're offering." He sits up straight and presses a button on his phone, "Hey lady who's name I ain't never been able to pronounce, I need a cleanup crew in here asap, and a specimen jar, size a." Depressing the button, he sits back once more. "I think I'll let him cry and fret for an hour or two, then get his tongue."

Everything is arguably going fine until Madison chooses to be all insensitive. Edgar frowns at him - and if Madison were a few decades younger, he'd be shaking a finger at him. "You need to learn the names of the secretaries. It makes them feel better about themselves when you know their names, and then they work harder." Duh. It's also just rude. Edgar is willing to let the subject drop, however, and is soon all smiles once again. "We still on for golf on Saturday?" The subject change from pre-crushed eyeballs to golf is absolutely a normal and logical one to make.

"She likes me and doesn't care, otherwise she could have been reassigned at anytime the past fifteen years she's work.. or is it a he, damn she-male lookin' demons.. anyway. We're tight." Madison is unruffled at Edgar's annoyance with him. As far as he's concerned, no human tongue in existence could pronounce that demonic name without doing some serious damage to themselves. "I always get her nice gifts, treat her good. She don't care." It's true, she doesn't. Of course having a lack of emotions helps with that. "Damn straight we're on. I think Billy Dee's joining us."

Nice gifts aren't all there is to being good to people, but Edgar isn't going to make a huge fuss over it. "You two had better be ready for me to beat your butts, then." He pushes up to his feet again and starts wandering towards the window, apparently fascinated with it to some minor degree. "It's too quiet out there. Something needs to happen soon, or the Senior Partners will start thinking that all of us are slacking."

"We can't have that. I saw what happened to the last person who slacked off. Stunk up the lobby for weeks." Madison leans back further in his chair, resting his hands behind his head, puffing on the cigar. "As for golf, you ain't kicking nobody's ass white boy." But back to business! "So is that Angel character still a player? I heard some talk about him then it got all quiet. He can't be dust by now or we'd have heard something." Heads would roll if that were the case. Literally. "'Course, if we were to make some noise, stir up some trouble, it's gotta be worth it. You know how the higher ups get pissed when time and resources are wasted."

The 'white boy' comment is let to slide with no more than a smile on Edgar's part to acknowledge that it was even made. "I don't think we've heard the last of Angel. Everything I've read about him seems to indicate that he has an annoying propensity to appear out of nowhere when he's least wanted. Perhaps if we made some trouble we could bank on that in addition to other gains, and hope that we'll get a chance at snagging ourselves a vampire." He pauses for a moment, then smiles broadly once again. "That, or we can just have ourselves an entertaining evening." 'Making noise' in L.A. always proves to be good for a laugh.

"Then we better be prepared when he surfaces again," Madison says with a large smile, followed by a booming chuckle. He sits up straight and snuffs out his cigar for now, resting it on his ashtray. "It's gotta have purpose," he says as he shoves himself up from his seat and moves to stand near Edgar at the window. "I think we got some nests we can go clean out, round up folks who suit our needs. The usual. What'cha got brewing in that head of yours, Eddie?"

A chuckle. "All sorts of things are brewing in my head, just like they always do. Look into getting a crew together and I'll see what I can do to make a little fuss. Those inventories are full of interesting things." Interesting things that can cause chaos, and interesting things that Edgar has access to are even more interesting. And possibly deadly. He looks to the side, for a moment enjoying the novelty of actually having to tilt his head up to see someone else's face properly. "This should be fun."

"I'll get started. I got some boys who don't ask questions." Underlings more like it. Loyal people who do whatever Madison asks or tells them to do. It's so nice to be respected and feared. "I look forward to working with you on this project Eddie. Now get the hell outta my office and get back to work." A hand is clapped in fraternal fashion against Edgar's shoulder, accompanied by a wide grin to show he only meant his words in the nicest way towards his colleague.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License