A Christmas Carol

[Swift]

After a couple more minutes of poking and prodding the EMT stands. "There, I think you'll be alright for now. No sign of a concussion that I can see, but you really should stop by the hospital and have them check you out, just to be safe." Then the two medics head off toward the next person in need of attention.

"A lawyer? Oh. Um, wow!" The girl looks a little flustered for a moment, but then she leans in conspiratorially. "Well, nothing quite like this today, of course, but Abbey - she works over at the jewelry counter at the Macey's, you know, she's a regular customer always stops by for a large Pomegranate-Dragonfruit with energy before her shift and an Orange-Strawberry with immune booster after, well, she says that her boss, the big boss, you know, not the jewelry manager, but the guy who runs the whole store? Well, he comes buy the counter all the time. Tells them to mark up some jewelry or another, then some rich looking guy looking for a gift or a daddy's girl feeling down on herself comes by and starts looking. He'll 'casually' walk by and offer them a discount back to it's actual price, sell it all up as a manager's special, you know? Then after they buy it he makes sure they record the manager's discount on the items, but, and get this, he doesn't record the markup!" As she talks she gestures air quotes with her free hand when she says 'casually', then she throws the same hand up at the end.

"I know! Right?! But the books always seem to work out. I bet you know where that money's going, don't you? And it's always on some really expensive piece too. Abbey said he did it on a $2,300 dollar necklace once! Guy walked away with over $400 on that one item. Must have really needed a new suit or something. Oh look!" She suddenly gets more excited and points. "There he is right there!"

Over in the direction the smoothie girl indicates the man in the rumpled suit and blood shot eyes glances blearily at Shin. "Um," he blinks a couple time, "oh, yeah, thanks." He takes a cookie and looks at the smoothies. "Say, any of these have energy boosters?"

[Perry diCarto]

Perry listened patiently, smiling slightly as the girl rambled on and on. He waited for her to get to the good stuff - and eventually she did. So the man was stealing from the store - so how was that connected to what was going on right now with him? The Shadowsoul peered over at the guy that she indicated, specifically looking for the man's shadow to see if it appeared to match his body. Good. Shin's already started. A flash of a grin, back at the girl. "Interesting. Very interesting. Thank you so much for your help," he said with a brilliant smile, offering her a business card with a little flourish. "If you can think of anything else that might help us, please, just give me a call!"

It had to be connected. Odd occurrences usually were, he found. He peered at the man, seeing if he could pierce through any mask that might be there. That would go a long way to solving things, if this guy was a Changeling in disguise.

Saying his farewells to the girl, he headed over to the security guards with the banker. Looking for the one in charge, Perry introduced himself, offering the man a handshake. "Hello, sir; how are you today?" he said. "My name is Perry diCarto. I'm an attorney... and I'm getting the sense that this gentleman might need to exercise his right to legal counsel once he wakes up. Mind if I have a chat with him?" It was a polite request as much as a suggestion - this man had rights, and if he was denied access to counsel, any case against him could be tainted.

  5 sux to get the girl to call if she thinks of anything else useful, 3 sux to get access to the banker, 5 sux to check the strung out guy's shadow

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2013-01-07 14:18:05		Perry diCarto rolls 6 to Perception (10 Again)		10, 8, 8, 6, 1, 9, 8		5 successes
2013-01-07 14:14:16		Perry diCarto rolls 11 to I'm a Lawyer, Let Me Talk to My Client (Manip3+Per5+SL4+Fame1) (10 Again)		3, 4, 3, 8, 2, 5, 9, 3, 8, 5, 5		3 successes
2013-01-07 14:12:33		Perry diCarto rolls 11 to Call Me If You Think of Anything Else? (Manip3+Per5+SL4+Fame1) (10 Again)		2, 2, 1, 9, 10, 8, 6, 8, 10, 5, 4, 3, 6		5 successes

[Malcolm Green]

One of the advantages of being really tall and built like, well, a rock, is that when one plays dumb and quiet, quite often one is ignored as if one were little more than part of the scenery. Green knew all about being part of the scenery. He also knew how walls -and big dumb rocks- had ears. So he used his while the girl babbles on about the secret goings-on of the food court. Of interest is the fraud. Of interest is the rumour of other rumours, of other strange events that happen at the mall with regularity. Of interest is the coincidence of the Fairest lawyer he met turning up out of the blue, after the riot calms down.

Green watches it all, filing it away for later.

He remains silent but once the medics have let him be, he shifts his position so that he looks like a dumb guy who doesn't know what to do, torn between staying and going. He casts a look over to the stone dog, his fellow Elemental, in case he is needed. He does the same to the battered Darkling, a silent offer of assistance. He even sends a glance to the lawyer, though he doesn't think the Fairest caught it, given how he is wrapped up with the police.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is wait... and absorb stuff.

[Perry diCarto]

Perry's head slowly turned, and his emerald green eyes stared at Erik for a moment. He had zero clue what the weird Darkling was doing right now, but if he got the security guards all up in arms and made Perry's life hard, there would be hell to pay. His tone was polite, but it was pretty obvious Perry did not appreciate whatever Erik was trying to do. "If you want to bring suit against anybody successfully, you might want to go get an actual medical examination of your injuries done for the records." As if the alternative was complete failure. As if maybe Perry might go on the record for the mall instead, even though he wasn't even a civil litigator. There was something hinky and Fae going on here, and Erik was derailing their looking into that.

He returned his attention to the guards, flashing them a brief smile. There was a possible client and a definately involved individual he needed to assist, and he'd dealt with the random intruder.

  failure to realize Erik is trying to help

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2013-01-10 22:11:09		perry dicarto rolls 4 to wits+emp (10 Again)		4, 3, 4, 2		failure

  3 sux intimidate vs. Erik to put a bit of kick behind his words

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2013-01-10 19:59:20		Perry diCarto rolls 11 to Go away! (Pres+Intimidation+spec+SL4) (9 Again)		10, 10, 4, 6, 1, 3, 8, 2, 5, 6, 3, 6, 5		3 successes

[Swift]

ooc

Jarons has chosen to leave the scene, it is not a mechanical effect of Perry's intimidation. I apologize this took so long to resume. I meant to try a couple days ago, but I suddenly found my time at a premium. We should be back to normal posting rate now.

The two mall cops guarding the banker look at each other after the exchange between Perry diCarto and Erik. Neither of them looks at all confident about the situation. The glance at each other and one of the shrugs, the other shakes his head in a sort of false bravado. "Fucking ambulance chasers," he mutters under his breath in his best attempt to imitate his favorite crime drama. But both of them step aside without any complaint, or any real verbal response to the lawyer.

---

Meanwhile, the man shrugs Shin Wei and then takes the smoothie and chugs it down. Then he grimaces and pinches his nose to fight off the inevitable brain-freeze. He seems to totally miss that Shin is trying to come up with small talk and answers. "Is it? I didn't notice." Off to the side, @%1; stands quietly observing the conversations.

[Perry diCarto]

Perry sighed to himself as Erik stalked off. He supposed it was for the best that the man should get some treatment and rest; he'd had the shit kicked out of him, and that hardly helped anybody's day go well. Speaking of which...

"Hi, how are you?" he said to one of the EMTs with a flash of a smile. Perry had plenty of handy allies in the emergency services world; paramedics, dispatchers, police officers - all were good people for a defence lawyer to know. "My name is Perry diCarto... I'm a defence lawyer here in town? Would you be willing to give me a hand with my client? He... seems to be unconscious." He said with a little smile and shrug.

  3 sux for allies socialization

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2013-01-14 23:18:51		Perry diCarto rolls 10 to Recognize me, Allies! Pres4+Soc0+SpringSocBonus1+2SL4+Allies2+Fame1 (10 Again)		8, 1, 4, 1, 9, 10, 1, 6, 7, 5, 7		3 successes