2009-11-21: Olde English Elephant Safari

Starring:

Adam_V4icon.pngHallis_V4icon.pngTracy_V4icon.png

Date: November 21, 2009

Summary:

Ivory poachers never take a break…. ever.


"Olde English Elephant Safari"

Downtown, NYC - Greenwich Village

It is the weekend and a balmy 55 degrees, most of the city's residents are filing along the sidewalks or in their cars on the way from one shopping locale to the next. One such resident is Hallis an Cortlandt, unfortunately, she is not shopping but hanging around a very closed Hope Hearth Ditress Center looking particularly distressed. Dressed in her usual black leggings, and cashmere wrap, she has spiced it up today by layering a jersey skirt over her hips. Her shoes? Well they are fabulous as always, a pair of black Ann Demeulemeester boots.

"Sydney, it's Hallis. I really need someone to talk to right now. Why aren't you open? What are you doing? Are you ignoring me?" With a frustrated growl, she pushes the off button on her cell phone and jams it into her purse, another extravagance (Fendi). Turning around, she bumps right into another woman and cries out. "Augh! Watch where you—-" Then she winces as though the next words out of her mouth cause her extreme pain. "I'm sorry…" she says with a calm and cool smile, "My mistake."

That woman happens to be a well-dressed and much taller blonde of another sort: Tracy. Her mind is very much focused, but focused elsewhere; one might think that, when searching desperately for someone, she'd have her eyes on every street corner, but after days of doing just that, she's given up on the notion of randomly seeing him on the street corner of a massive city. So naturally, she's on the phone.

"I have no idea what video you're talking about, I haven't been in front of a TV all day. Senator Wynn is— ah!"

Surprised when Hallis runs into her, she steps back, jostled, phone moving away from her ear as she winces. One of her arms is in a sling, after all, worn over her sweater: black, also cashmere, trim and elegant with a small turtleneck, worn with a pair of dressy grey pants. The young socialite earns a cold glare but also a strange look of panic. She shoves her phone into her purse without hanging up — because it's about to turn into ice. "It's fine," she mutters.

Talk about your random run-ins! What god of fate would bring Adam to run into Miss Van Cortlandt again this fine fall evening? And not only her, but apparently, a fine-looking friend as well. It just so happens that Adam Monroe, enjoying money and freedom is walking down the streets of Greenwich Village without a care in the world, on his way to a fine dinner, but the sight of Hallis and Tracy across the street is more than enough to bring him to a complete stop.

Leaning against a lightpost, not quite Gene Kelly-style, he smiles with mild amusement as they quite literally run into each other. Eventually, after all introductions are made, he brings himself to cross the street, wearing a black pinstriped suit, black shirt, white tie, white pocket square, and two-tone shoes-very swing revival-like. "I do think you'd get a better response by not standing outside the clinic and yelling for your doctor, hm?" he says, sliding up behind Hallis, and waiting to see her reaction.

Giving a curt nod to Tracy, the young socialite seems a little more amicable after taking a quick glance at the woman's attire. Yes. She completely judges books by their covers and usually the plain brown ones are overlooked. "Did I hurt your arm?" she queries in a much gentler tone, lifting a hand up in an 'I surrender' type manner. When the woman gives her the a-okay, she nods once and her lips twitch into another, this time warmer, smile.

Adam though, he does startle the young Hallis with his sudden approach and once again she nearly jumps into the arms (or arm) of Tracy. She catches herself just short of bumping the other blonde again and holds a hand over her heart. "Oh, Adam, you startled me." She emits in an all too breathy voice. "I wasn't exactly yelling for my doctor, was I?" A sudden flush of embarrassment covers her cheeks and the hand that was once over her heart flies to her mouth.

"No more than it already is," Tracy answers, a few tones short of being friendly, but she flashes Hallis a bright, polite smile after the fact. As she calms down — or at the very least, makes a strong effort to force herself to do so — she gets her bearings. A glance is given to the Hope Hearth Distress Center sign, eyes narrowing in something like recognition (not especially pleasant recognition); until, that is, she's almost bumped into again by Hallis. Even though the collision is avoided, she backpedals a step all the same. The gentlemen behind Hallis is given a cursory glance and basically ignored. Instead of going on her way, she interjects. "Excuse me, I'm sorry to interfere— " she holds up her hand now that it's safely non-chilled. "Someone named Sydney works here?"

"Well, you are standing outside of a distress center, asking why it's not open, complaining that someone may be ignoring you…what is a man to think?" To Hallis, he gives a dashing smile, to show her that he didn't completely mean to slide up behind her like that and startle here, but rather, just a little bit. After that, however, he's content to remove himself from the conversation a little bit. His eyes do fall upon Tracy's broken arm though, knowing what he could do to help her instantaneously. "I'm just a passerby in all of this…you'll have to ask the young socialite here…she seems to know Sydney."

Twisting her head from Adam's dashing smile, Hallis looks up at Tracy and nods. "Sydney Falkland? Yes she works here. She's my therapist… just." Then her voice dies off a little and she offers the woman a very tight smile. "She's been a little preoccupied with some elephant poacher or something. He's supposed to be a big deal." Shrugging, she turns to Adam again and gives him a brilliant smile, "Whatever are you doing out on the street? Did you enjoy the rest of the party? Ray didn't even mention seeing you there."

The same narrowed gaze Tracy was giving the Hope Hearth sign now falls upon Hallis, cool and calculating, sparkling with something not unlike suspicion. It's not news that the same Sydney she met works here; Tracy is, after all, thorough. She had to look up Ms. Falkland to make sure she was who she said she was. C'mon. "…Ivory?" she makes a logic leap while giving the socialite a skeptical look. "Yes, Ms. Falkland and I have an acquaintance in common." She didn't even realize she wound up here by the distress center. "Small world. Anyway," she says with a half-smile, giving her head a small shake. Crossing her good arm across her chest to protect the other, she moves as though to slip past Hallis and Adam.

"Likely the fact that I never introduced myself to your friend Ray. I was quite content to sit end enjoy the open bar without interjecting myself into the affairs of young socialites." Strategically, he leaves off the part about them being MUCH younger. For his part, Adam slides aside, leaving Tracy a clear shot either down the sidewalk past him, or toward the entrance of the clinic; that doesn't at all stop him from enjoying the view, as it were…it does quite the opposite, in fact, as he keeps his eyes on Tracy the whole time. "I do hope you've had that arm looked at! Fine doctors here in New York…" he says, tempted to wink, but content to grin.

"Really? I thought you said—" But that's dropped, Hallis doesn't press the issue too much. Then she gives the blone man a coy little grin. "Well it was quite a party, it was my a personal highlight of my evening to meet you." The social graces are very much gushes as her smile wanes and she turns surprisedly toward Tracy again. "Yes that's it! Ivory. You know him?" Hallis counters, accidentally moving in the same direction as Tracy as she attempts to get out of the way. The sidestepping dance that follows is not an uncommon sight on the crowded sidewalks, but it does make for an awkward getaway. "Do you know him? George seemed to know him too, is he another politician?" Then, something of a surprise. "He's missing isn't he?"

There are fine doctors in Washington also! Tracy doesn't say as much. One on the long strap of her purse as she walks away, she doesn't make it very far before she finds slipping off rather difficult. She sidesteps closer to the building out of the way. Her hair is pulled back today, in a long, slender ponytail, and it sways as her head spins to focus on Hallis. "Missing…" she eyes the young woman, confirming nor denying; her tone is question, even mildly prying. "Ivory Wynn is a Senator of this state, the junior Senator of New York," she says with a faint laugh to her voice — as if Hallis should know already. "I work with him. Who told you he was missing?"

"If I might…it seems that George, her most recent romantic encounter, and representative in the House is the one that told her." To Hallis, Adam flashes a smirk…a knowing, all-too-knowledgeable smirk. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to read the tabloids…inside, he means, not just the cover. Following his interjection, Adam slides across the sidewalk, toward a wall, where he reaches into an interior jacket pocket and pulls out a slender silver case. From within there, he pulls out a hand rolled cigarette, with some fine tobacco. "Either of you ladies care for one?" Not like he's got cancer to worry about, right?

"Well, George didn't really tell me. But he made a phone call and this Ivory man wasn't in his office." Hallis explains in a rather low tone, "Then Sydney, she's been all out of sorts because he's not around…" Sometimes the blonde's logic works, just a little. "I figured if he was her…" Pause. "…client? He would keep in contact with her." She's babbling a little, trying to backtrack and the nervousness causes her voice to crack just a little. She fidgets and pulls her purse further up her arm to hang in the crook of her elbow and gives the tall blonde a little bit of a smile. "It's not hard to figure that he's probably dropped off the face of the earth, I mean, she was absolutely frantic when I mentioned that her cell phone was off."

"George. Congressman Dawson?" Once Tracy makes that leap of logic, she can't help the faintly incredulous, superior look that crosses her features upon studying Hallis in the new light of George's romantic encounter, but it's short-lived. "No," she answers distractedly to Adam, in fact moving farther away from him and his soon-to-be-smoking cigarette in order to focus on Hallis, who she gestures to, suddenly very interested. "Sydney was … frantic," she repeats slowly. "It's true that the Senator is … out of contact, at the moment— I'm sorry, my name is Tracy Strauss, I'm Senator Wynn's advisor." Pause. "What exactly was Sydney saying?"

Adam gives a little shrug of his shoulders in Tracy's direction, and doesn't let her icy demeanor stop him from pulling out a lighter. With a flick of the ancient and well-loved lighter, he gets the tip of the cig smoking. With his back against the wall of the distress center, he takes a few puffs. He's not exactly making any good contributions to their conversation, but he's not about to leave yet, either. The Senator's name seems like something he's heard before in that trickle of information that's reach him across the bigger pond and gotten him back here.

"Yes Congressman Dawson," The young socialite quips, her ire brought to the surface as she realizes she's on the receiving end of the incredulous look. A look she reserves for those of lower class or the extremely unfashionable. "We saw Sydney outside of a restaurant and George invited her to have dinner with us. Not that we actually ordered…" Hallis' pride seems to be a little bruised on the matter, and she looks away, clenching her jaw. "I was telling George that his cell phone was off and Sydney thought I was talking to her and she went absolutely ballistic." The young blondes eyes shine as she spreads the tiny tidbit of gossip, it's what her clique lives for. Unfortunately the sort of gossip she receives lately isn't the stuff made for parties. "She was beside herself with the thought that this Ivory man couldn't get a hold of her."

"Really. Is that so." Tracy's again piqued but her voice flat. This time, her glare goes past Hallis, over the woman's shoulder and into space, pointed at Sydney, wherever she is. "Alright," she says decisively, pointing at Hallis with one hand. "I'm gonna have to play publicist here — I'm sorry, what's your name? — and track down Congressman Dawson. Do you know if he's in the city?"

"I'd be more than happy to give you my name…as well as my number, hotel, and room number…" Adam manages to mumble, mostly under his breath, and around the cigarette between his lips. It's facetious and chauvinistic, just the way he likes it…his comment, not the cigarette. But he doesn't stop eavesdropping for one second over the discussion of Ivory, and Hallis with George.

This time it's Tracy's turn to receive the incredulous gaze, after all, the blonde's face has been all over the tabloids and society pages since she was thirteen. "You mean… You don't know?" Hallis seems truly offended by this. "Hallis Van Cortlandt," she says very coolly, extending her hand tentatively. When Adam speaks, Hallis jerks her head to give him a look over her shoulder. "I'm almost offended that I didn't get an invitation like that, Adam." And then she smirks before turning back to Tracy. "If you need to get a hold of George, it will have to wait until Monday. I'm keeping him a little bit busy this weekend, we're a package deal."

Tracy may be focused on Hallis, but she's sharp. After the younger woman's response to Adam, she looks over her shoulder at the Englishman also, long enough to dismiss him with a decidedly unimpressed and transitory glare. "I wasn't asking you." Back to Hallis, whose business she doesn't quite know about. "Well. Ms. Van Cortlandt. I've been a little out of the loop. I'll just give him a quick call then."

"I didn't think you were, Miss Straus," Adam quicky states, in a somewhat apologetic tone. "Force of habit, I'm afraid. Nature versus nurture, vis a vis, what have you, and so on…" he adds, mostly to his own shoes. The streetlights are bright enough to reveal that he's not really apologetic in the least though, as he's still grinning quite broadly.

Pulling her hand away, Hallis simply nods and gives the other woman a curt, "I'll tell him you're looking for him." Then she checks the watch on her wrist and gives them both a small smile. "I should be going though, I'm sure that somewhere in this city there is a pair of shoes calling my name. And I believe their names are Miu Miu." To Adam, a wide smile is delivered and nods, "I'll take you up on that cigarette some other time, perhaps the morning after."

If Tracy hears Adam talking to himself, she makes no show of it, save perhaps for the vaguest of eye rolls that only Hallis is partial to. "Of course," she says by way of goodbye. "I should get going myself." In fact, now that she's finished getting what information she wanted from Ms. Van Cortlandt here, she's in a hurry to leave. What if her phone doesn't work? Having a Sydney moment, as it were, she pulls her cell out and quickly turns to saunter briskly down the street the way she was going before her run-in with Hallis.

"Well, that was completely unexpected," Adam says, looking up to find Hallis walking one way and Tracy the other. "Can't say that happens often," he says to nobody but the wind. Of course, he's a little more informed than he was a little while ago…he's got a few names to go with the rumors circulating about that he's rounding up. That in and of itself qualifies as a success for the evening. Of all the things he's been in his life, detective hasn't been one of them, not yet at least…

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