White Collar Fic - A Woman of Principles
Nov. 22nd, 2010 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elrhiarhodanTitle: A Woman of Principles
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Alex Hunter
Spoilers: 2.03 (Copycat Caffrey)
Warnings/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~1200
Summary: There are some things that Alex Hunter won’t handle.
__________________
Alex’s cliental has always been built through word of mouth. It’s not like she has a shop or a small office in a discreet building on Fifth Avenue or Kensington High Street. People who know people who know people know that Alex Hunter can you get things, and can get you money for the things you need to get rid of. The first string of “people” also know that Alex is protected, she’d got connections and she’s not a woman to be crossed lightly. The second string of “people” know that Alex is a most trustworthy person, and they will vouch for both her ingenuity and her honesty. The third string of “people,” the ones most distant from her, know enough to recommend her, but they certainly couldn’t ever pick her out of a room full of strangers.
When she takes on a project - whether it’s to steal or to sell, she’s very careful. She vets everyone through the first filter and then through the second. When she finally agrees to meet with a client, it’s always on her terms and on her turf. And if she’s unhappy, she’ll walk away and never, ever look back.
Lately, though – Alex has had a hard time. The thing with the music box, and the people who wanted it had made her life difficult. It was funny that Neal first engineered her rescue from the Detroit goons via the FBI agent who held his leash, and then used her to betray the very same agent. But when all is said and done, she has to be honest with herself, Peter Burke is a good guy. He genuinely seems to care for Neal, and even though Neal runs rings around him, Burke stands by him. She thinks, maybe he could be an asset for her, someone she could call on as a last resort. She may not be his favorite person, but she just knows that if she is in desperate straits, she could call on him. He’d help her first and extract a price later. If the need is so great that she has to call on the Fed, that is something she is going to have to learn to live with.
About six months after the thing with the music box and the silver and poor Moz nearly getting himself killed, she’s at a party in Soho. Not because she likes the idea of sipping cheap vodka and getting a headache from the bad weed and the worse house music. But someone she trusts has set up a contact for her - something that could be big, except that he won’t say what needs to be moved. She’s torn - her bank account’s too low to pass up a large score, but she hates the nebulous quality of this opportunity.
She’s almost ready to go when a rather handsome guy - older than the twenty-somethings thrashing away on the dance floor - approaches her. He’s tall, lean, and in the dim light she can’t tell if his hair is artfully streaked with highlights or gracefully turning silver. He smiles and asks if she’s ever gone dancing on the Left Bank of the Seine. A rather stupid pick-up line, except that it’s the agreed upon signal her contact arranged.
She gives the right response, “Yes, I’ve danced from the Rive Droite to the Rive Gauche and back again, across the Pont Ivorie.” The contact smiles and introduces himself as Alexandre Chasseur. They both laugh lightly. He tries to buy her a drink, but she’s too cautious. She asks him to dance and he shakes his head - this isn’t quite his scene. They leave by the front door and end up in an all night diner near Prince Street.
They chat for the better part of an hour, and Alex can’t quite place Chasseur’s accent. It’s not French, despite his name. She keeps him talking about inconsequentialities, which city has better coffee, where can you buy those lovely little cookies that go so nicely with French Champagne, until finally, Alexandre reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small envelope and pushes it towards her.
It’s not a diamond parcel, that’s clear. Alex has made it clear to her contacts that she won’t deal in diamonds anymore. Registered diamonds are too hard to move and too easy to trace, and she won’t touch blood diamonds. She carefully opens the package and a square of sealed material drops out. It’s a gold coin - but not a Krugerrand, and at first, she’s thankful - she doesn’t want to see any of those ever again. But once she looks closely, she shudders. This coin is infinitely worse than the South African ones - it’s a 1932 Nazi Reichmark.
Alex Hunter is a woman of principles - liar and thief that she is. She is also the granddaughter of a survivor; her grandmother was liberated from Bergen-Belsen in 1945. She won’t move this, and in fact, she wants to take this disgusting thing and jam it into the handsome Mr. Chasseur’s right eye. But she doesn’t. She keeps her cool and her composure.
“I’ve seen a lot of “Nazi Gold” over the years, Alexandre. Almost all of the coins are gold-plated and have been touched up.”
“Look at the denomination – it’s a fifty-Reichsmark coin.”
Alex had seen that at first glance, but she needed time to plan, to plot, to think of the best way to play this out, and to keep Chasseur talking.
“Are you asking me to dispose of a single coin? Because I’ll have to say, up front - I don’t do business for such small parcels.” She smiles and swallows the bile rising in her throat.
“No, oh no. This is but one of a rather large cache”
“How large?”
“My client has access to several thousand from 1932 to 1937, in mint condition.”
“Access? That doesn’t sound like he actually has the coins.”
“No! He has them. They are just not in a place where he can get to them without making arrangements.”
“That sounds like he really doesn’t have the coins. I don’t know if I want to take on a project where the seller is going to default.”
“No, no – you misunderstand me.” Chasseur started to sound desperate. “The coins, they are not in the US. They’ve been in a vault since before the end of the war.”
Ahhh, gotcha! You’re Argentinean, Alexandre – or perhaps, Alejandro? Alex keeps playing her mark. “You want to move them all at once? You know that’s a big problem. Large quantities of Third Reich gold – even coinage - is subject to all sorts of law suits and criminal problems. A big delivery will attract the wrong attention from the wrong kind of people.”
“Which is why I’ve come to you. You have the reputation of dealing with the impossible and the improbable.” He’s clearly flirting with her now.
Alex glances down at the coin she’s still holding and makes up her mind very quickly. “Considering the logistics issues and the potential political fallout, my cut’s twenty-five percent, plus expenses. And I’ll need to hold onto this as a sample to show potential buyers.”
Chasseur pretends to frown at her demand. “Twenty percent, and I keep the coin.”
“Twenty-two - and if I don’t have a sample, you’ll never get a buyer.”
“Done.” The bastard smiles at her and holds out his hand to shake on the deal.
Alex smiles back. She’ll take this job and if Neal’s pet Fed just happens to bust the transaction wide opened, well – those things happen sometimes. It would be nice to be able to call a marker in from Peter Burke.
FIN
Originally written forbe_a_rebel's prompt "Alex - Shudder" for Promptfest IV.
Author:
elrhiarhodan Fandom: White Collar
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Alex Hunter
Spoilers: 2.03 (Copycat Caffrey)
Warnings/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~1200
Summary: There are some things that Alex Hunter won’t handle.
Alex’s cliental has always been built through word of mouth. It’s not like she has a shop or a small office in a discreet building on Fifth Avenue or Kensington High Street. People who know people who know people know that Alex Hunter can you get things, and can get you money for the things you need to get rid of. The first string of “people” also know that Alex is protected, she’d got connections and she’s not a woman to be crossed lightly. The second string of “people” know that Alex is a most trustworthy person, and they will vouch for both her ingenuity and her honesty. The third string of “people,” the ones most distant from her, know enough to recommend her, but they certainly couldn’t ever pick her out of a room full of strangers.
When she takes on a project - whether it’s to steal or to sell, she’s very careful. She vets everyone through the first filter and then through the second. When she finally agrees to meet with a client, it’s always on her terms and on her turf. And if she’s unhappy, she’ll walk away and never, ever look back.
Lately, though – Alex has had a hard time. The thing with the music box, and the people who wanted it had made her life difficult. It was funny that Neal first engineered her rescue from the Detroit goons via the FBI agent who held his leash, and then used her to betray the very same agent. But when all is said and done, she has to be honest with herself, Peter Burke is a good guy. He genuinely seems to care for Neal, and even though Neal runs rings around him, Burke stands by him. She thinks, maybe he could be an asset for her, someone she could call on as a last resort. She may not be his favorite person, but she just knows that if she is in desperate straits, she could call on him. He’d help her first and extract a price later. If the need is so great that she has to call on the Fed, that is something she is going to have to learn to live with.
About six months after the thing with the music box and the silver and poor Moz nearly getting himself killed, she’s at a party in Soho. Not because she likes the idea of sipping cheap vodka and getting a headache from the bad weed and the worse house music. But someone she trusts has set up a contact for her - something that could be big, except that he won’t say what needs to be moved. She’s torn - her bank account’s too low to pass up a large score, but she hates the nebulous quality of this opportunity.
She’s almost ready to go when a rather handsome guy - older than the twenty-somethings thrashing away on the dance floor - approaches her. He’s tall, lean, and in the dim light she can’t tell if his hair is artfully streaked with highlights or gracefully turning silver. He smiles and asks if she’s ever gone dancing on the Left Bank of the Seine. A rather stupid pick-up line, except that it’s the agreed upon signal her contact arranged.
She gives the right response, “Yes, I’ve danced from the Rive Droite to the Rive Gauche and back again, across the Pont Ivorie.” The contact smiles and introduces himself as Alexandre Chasseur. They both laugh lightly. He tries to buy her a drink, but she’s too cautious. She asks him to dance and he shakes his head - this isn’t quite his scene. They leave by the front door and end up in an all night diner near Prince Street.
They chat for the better part of an hour, and Alex can’t quite place Chasseur’s accent. It’s not French, despite his name. She keeps him talking about inconsequentialities, which city has better coffee, where can you buy those lovely little cookies that go so nicely with French Champagne, until finally, Alexandre reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small envelope and pushes it towards her.
It’s not a diamond parcel, that’s clear. Alex has made it clear to her contacts that she won’t deal in diamonds anymore. Registered diamonds are too hard to move and too easy to trace, and she won’t touch blood diamonds. She carefully opens the package and a square of sealed material drops out. It’s a gold coin - but not a Krugerrand, and at first, she’s thankful - she doesn’t want to see any of those ever again. But once she looks closely, she shudders. This coin is infinitely worse than the South African ones - it’s a 1932 Nazi Reichmark.
Alex Hunter is a woman of principles - liar and thief that she is. She is also the granddaughter of a survivor; her grandmother was liberated from Bergen-Belsen in 1945. She won’t move this, and in fact, she wants to take this disgusting thing and jam it into the handsome Mr. Chasseur’s right eye. But she doesn’t. She keeps her cool and her composure.
“I’ve seen a lot of “Nazi Gold” over the years, Alexandre. Almost all of the coins are gold-plated and have been touched up.”
“Look at the denomination – it’s a fifty-Reichsmark coin.”
Alex had seen that at first glance, but she needed time to plan, to plot, to think of the best way to play this out, and to keep Chasseur talking.
“Are you asking me to dispose of a single coin? Because I’ll have to say, up front - I don’t do business for such small parcels.” She smiles and swallows the bile rising in her throat.
“No, oh no. This is but one of a rather large cache”
“How large?”
“My client has access to several thousand from 1932 to 1937, in mint condition.”
“Access? That doesn’t sound like he actually has the coins.”
“No! He has them. They are just not in a place where he can get to them without making arrangements.”
“That sounds like he really doesn’t have the coins. I don’t know if I want to take on a project where the seller is going to default.”
“No, no – you misunderstand me.” Chasseur started to sound desperate. “The coins, they are not in the US. They’ve been in a vault since before the end of the war.”
Ahhh, gotcha! You’re Argentinean, Alexandre – or perhaps, Alejandro? Alex keeps playing her mark. “You want to move them all at once? You know that’s a big problem. Large quantities of Third Reich gold – even coinage - is subject to all sorts of law suits and criminal problems. A big delivery will attract the wrong attention from the wrong kind of people.”
“Which is why I’ve come to you. You have the reputation of dealing with the impossible and the improbable.” He’s clearly flirting with her now.
Alex glances down at the coin she’s still holding and makes up her mind very quickly. “Considering the logistics issues and the potential political fallout, my cut’s twenty-five percent, plus expenses. And I’ll need to hold onto this as a sample to show potential buyers.”
Chasseur pretends to frown at her demand. “Twenty percent, and I keep the coin.”
“Twenty-two - and if I don’t have a sample, you’ll never get a buyer.”
“Done.” The bastard smiles at her and holds out his hand to shake on the deal.
Alex smiles back. She’ll take this job and if Neal’s pet Fed just happens to bust the transaction wide opened, well – those things happen sometimes. It would be nice to be able to call a marker in from Peter Burke.
Originally written for
be_a_rebel's prompt "Alex - Shudder" for Promptfest IV.
