From: shirlock Date: Wed, 26 Jan 00 00:48:52 +0800 Subject: The Pickpocket (1/1) by Shirlock Source: direct Title: The Pickpocket (1/1) Author: Shirlock Rating: PG-13 One objectionable word. Category: Humour, goddess!Scully fic. Summary: Once in a while, you get lucky. Timeline: After Millenium but definitely before Goldberg Variation. Disclaimer: Belongs to Mr. Chris Carter, Mr. David Duchovny and Miss Gillian Anderson. Dr. Basil Teasdale is mine. Feedback: shirlock@pacific.net.sg Distribution: OK Gossy, OK Spookys. Completed: 1 Feb 2000 This is part 3 of a series of first person's POV, starting with Shooting Dana, and The Chiropractor. You don't need to read those to understand this. It all started when I read an old article about Dana Scully being the thinking man's crumpet... Dedication: To the poets in us all. ***** Kleptomaniac. I thought to myself. Is that what I am? A well- off and still-dashing septuagenarian, ex-English literature professor from Warwickshire, who suffers from severe bouts of periodic kleptomania? Is that any better than cousin Bertram who suffers from lethonomia? Gor blimey--just how tragic is it to wake up next to one's wife and go "good morning snookums" only to sit there wondering for the better quarter of an hour just what her bloody name is? I look glumsily at the wallet in front of me and shake my head. I stole this man's wallet this morning. In broad daylight. Right in the Pennsylvania quarter, a stone's throw from the FBI too. How very snuff of me, I smile. It had been a most perishing day, with that sanguinary lot of hobbledehoys they have as under- graduates at the University. I teach English Lit every Moansday, Tearsdays and Thumpsday for Mrs. Bickersteth since she's about two weeks overdue if she's a day. Trying to impart Robert Burns' love of poetry is like having one's toenails pulled out one by one with rusty pliers. It's no wonder I need a proper day job. At least mooching is less painful and infinitely more rewarding. Think anybody can do it? I've a pedigree in pickpocketing, I have. It takes talent, cunning, a steady hand and nerves! Still it's a novelty. I just always take a small trophy for luck. I don't need the funny money. I usually send it back after a day or two. A kleptomaniac with a conscience is like a tabloid reporter who recognises personal space. You think they don't exist but then again, you're surprised you're even thinking about it. I sit in my old spot getting sloshed on some American pigswill called Budweiser. The spaggers here is good nosh, though I'm no high-muck-a-muck to appreciate anything better than spam. I may come out of the top drawers but I 'm never spraunchy when it comes to a meal. I've seen one war too many not to appreciate edible grub. But drink is a different matter. I come from a long line of pixilated Brannigans and I intend to uphold tradition. "Oy Doolan! One of your best hemlocks, please." I raise my empty glass as I pocket the hefty wallet. After that gut-rot, I like something stronger to chase down that briny sphaghetti. The pub is getting less rowdy since it's nearly ten to nine. I look around and see the same faces I do every Thursday night. All except the face that's attached to that bodacious body of a woman who is surveying the crowd in the bar area. Sweet Fanny Adams, she's a thinking man's crumpet if I ever saw one. And believe me, I've seen a few in my heydays, and I'm still thinking. Doolan's caught sight of her, along with every Flash Harry in the joint. The weather in Washington is reputably able to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Her cheeks are flushed rosy red from the cold. Her clothes have all the swank and vibrancy of a mortician's uniform, and her inner jacket is slightly askew from the briefcase she shoulders. 'A sweet disorder in the dress, rekindles in clothes, a wantoness.' She's embarrassed by the attention and her eyes fall to the lino- lium as she wends her way past a wrangle of philosophers and an odium of politicians. All the way to the booth next to mine. She's holding a piece of paper which she folds carefully before shoving it deep into her coat pocket. She's about to sit down when some blatteroon decides to cut in and offer to buy her a drink. "Thank you, but no." Her words are firm but courteous, but dear Mr. Hotpants seems to have developed a severe case of cloth-ears. "C'mon, Ah don't bite. Ah'm feeling alucky ta-night." Not bad for a rhyming idiot too. I stand up and pat him on his back. I am six-foot-two even if I am less muscular and pushing seventy-one soon. "Hei, Paddy. Don't get all umpty in here. Maybe you can get tanked somewhere else, eh?"I say brightly. "Naff off! Whas'sit to ya, Gramps? She's too young fer the likes of ya." I hate being called Gramps and I hate people who slur their words. A bit of a Henry Higgins in me, I suppose. Instead, I hug him close and draw him up next to me, whispering a few choice words. The cotton seems to unplug at last as I release him towards the front door. "And tell Harriet I said hi." I say to his retreating back. If he was a cartoon, and I'm not saying he wasn't, '#@?*!' would have been in his thought bubble. The scuzzy buzzard. "Dana Scully." She says, holding out her hand, smiling just a bit warmly than it was possible in this weather. "And, thank you." "Basil Teasdale "I say, shaking it. I like the dulcet tones in which she enunciates her words. "Can't trust a man who has the immortal rind to cheat on his wife even before he's able to buy her a Simple Simon." Her puzzlement is obvious in her brow which quirks in a manner that's both indulgent and respectful. I smile, "rhyming slang for diamond." One wouldn't know it if one wasn't English. An Englishman wouldn't know it either if he wasn't born before the 50s. "Thank you again, Basil. I--" She starts, then foregoes whatever she had wanted to say. She smiles again. Such a fragile creature. Her face is really delicate. Quite the English Rose. She looks down once more and I realise her discomfort. I quickly remove the briar pipe from the inside of my jacket and start fumbling for the pigtail twist of tobacco. She seems to be thinking about very important matters the way her spine stiffens. "May I?"She indicates the empty seat opposite mine. Good heavens. "Please."I say, "I would be delighted." She slides into the booth gracefully, leaving her brief- case at her feet. A heavy keychain clunks noisily on the table top. She watches me until I find it somewhat disconcerting; she's eyeing me like a police officer after a pickpocket. "Sorry, "she quickly apologises, "you remind me of someone." "Aaah. The paternal grandfather?" I say to her bemused face. "I have a granddaughter and you remind me of her. The hair of Lady Godiva and the eyes of Merlin." "How do you know Lady Godiva had red-"She stops suddenly and I join her in the laughter. It's an old joke but it never fails to break the ice. I see from her eyes how intelligent she is. How observant and how solitary she is tonight. My heart feels that pang of loneliness for such a young woman as herself. Doolan finally arrives with two pints of dark frothy Guinness. I always order two pints. It's a habit. Dana asks for a vodka lime and he retreats very slowly, like a chinese eunuch backing out of the Empress Dowager's presence. "My grandfather comes from North Yorkshire." She says coyly, "I used to put the tobacco in his Dutch pipe when I was a little girl." Such a simple gesture of love. I silently offer her my tobacco and my chewed-out pipe of twenty-two years. She takes it silently and starts packing it in. She does it very well too. I tell her about my spliff-toking Rastafarian ways of smoking cannabis until I was nearly fifty. How I never took up smoking a pipe until my granddaughter was born. Dana listens with the patience of a saint but something tells me that she's listening in order to get away from something that's bothering her. Her jovio- melancholy is just the tip of the iceberg. Doolan parks the drink at the table and wanders back behind the bar to watch a slow game of snookers on ESPN. "What's the matter, luv?"I prod grandfatherly, lighting the pipe as I take a generous puff. Her pretty eyes cloud for a moment before looking right at me. "I'm just tired." She says, just as I notice her slumped shoulders, the creases on her forehead and the heavy sighs. No ring on her finger.Nattily dressed though. Definitely not into politics; has a profession and not a career. Got the jim-jams like it goes with the suit. "I work for the FBI, and-- it's just been a long day." she sighs, after my mind wanders around the bend why smartly-dressed women always gets the most flapdoodle from guys? I'd hate to think what she has to put up at the Federal Boy's Institution. How unfortunate. An intelligent woman, with a face Keats or Wordsworth would write poetry for. John Donne would've starved for her. Burns? I think he would've made every one of his bonnie lasses a red head. A thinking man's crumpet is only good for thinking men. There are so few of them these days. "And it's not about men too, if that's what you're thinking." "I'm thinking it's their loss, luv."I smile to the slight dimp- ling in her right cheek. She is most charitable and takes up her glass to knock into mine, "well, chin chin, Basil. To older, wiser, more gentlemanly men." "Slainte!" I drink up. She's in a serious drinking mood and waves Doolan to keep the stouts flowing. And then we talk like we had known each other for years. It started with me talking about my Clara and the she started briefly, about her Mulder. Then her job at the FBI and my chequered career teaching in Oxford, then Brighton, then to several Universities on the US East coast before landing in Shaw-Howard in DC. We talked about ports and cities and Aristotle. We talked about aliens and Gods and beings that don't have bodies. We talked about evil and justice and why crime never pays. And we talked about luck and talent, and which is more important. We talked about Shakespeare and poetry and splendid things like friendships and family. We talked about life and death. In fact, we talked it all to death. We're sitting quietly for a while and I'm just feeling the slightest bit fricasseed after my fifth pint. She seems entirely comfortable with the lack of conversation now. I feel oddly paternalistic towards her even as I run through the rollodex in my mind just which man I know would do for her. She puts the kibosh to my mental ping-ponging by explaining why she's had a skull-buster of a day. She spins a fairly truncated yarn about men in a conspiracy, or rather, one particular fiendish bloke. Some odious guy with draconian powers who smokes Morleys like a chimney stack. Her partner at the FBI has just gone through the wringer and had escaped with a giant scalp mark. She chooses her words carefully, as if the information is highly confidential but she seemed all but at the end of her tether. She doesn't say the name of the man who's causing her all this grief, so I ask her. "Men like him don't have names. Though I can think of a few I'd like to call him." Her words said so seriously, makes my heart glad she's still got some fight in her. "Surely a man like him needs access to buildings, to facilities, to money?" She nods wearily. I seem completely out of my depth here. I wish I could help her. I could no more help her than I can stop my kleptomania. A hirrient sound wakes me from my internal musing. She takes out her cel phone and says "excuse me" soundlessly. "Mulder? Where are you?... I'm at The Lucky Irish Pub. You told me to meet you here at 9pm." She takes the piece of paper from her coat pocket and smoothes it on the table. "I would never write down 9 pm if you had said 8pm, Mulder...Yeah, I've got company."She smiles briefly at me. "He's very friendly, Mulder. No, no. Nothing like Jerse or Padgett. Vodka lime and two pints ...I'm fine. The folder?" She rifles through her briefcase for a large envelop and proceeds to draw out its contents. I move away the empty beer glasses so that she can put down her papers, official documents and what looks like forensic reports. Instead of putting the photos on the table, she chooses to stand them up. "...Byers was able to get these from the surveillance cameras. Yeah, I know. But I don't see what else there is to learn from these...luck? I haven't gotten lucky for I-don't-know-how-long."Suddenly Dana blushes, knowing how that sounded when my eyes grew rounder at her Freudian admission. "I'll cab it back to the office. My car's still there..." So much evidence and the perpetrators can still go free. Ironic, isn't it? Puff, puff, puff. The stolen wallet is practically mocking me through the polyester lining in my pocket. Clara would've said I lacked moral fibre. Stealing is no different from what that other man does. I'm no better than him. "I hope you find whatever you're looking for, Mulder. And I know I've said this before, but maybe you ought to clean up your desk once in a while. Okay. See you tomorrow." She thumbs off the connection and bites the bottom of her fleshy lip. She reminds me so much of Clara. "That's the official poop-sheet, eh, Dana?" I ask. Subterfuge, deceit, henchmen doing their dirty deeds. Covert operations and the CIA, NSA. All so remarkable in its unremarkability. The evil that men do. Her melancholy dips another fathom. "Have you ever been down on your luck, Basil?" "Ever since my Clara died, I guess. Maybe that's why I come into the Lucky Irish Pub." I say tiredly. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't --" "Aw, don't be, luv. Luck's for the Irish, and I'm only half Irish.I like to say I'm descended from the Joyces or the Yeats, but alas--I'm a Teasdale. " "If it's any consolation, I'm half Irish too."She smiles, betraying her shyness through her Irish blues. "Well then, two half-Irishes. That's makes us a lucky whole." I laugh through the curling grey smoke. "Besides, I don't believe in luck. Look at the rabbit's foot. That's all gobble- degook, if I've ever heard any. Where's the luck in losing your foot?" "I think the luck's supposed to be on the person who has the rabbit foot." She says primly, but the mood's lightened. "Oh. Bob's your uncle then." I say nonchalantly. Must say she's PDQ even after quaffing down two manky beers and that vodka lime. "Is that your lucky charm?" She picks up her keyring and considers her talisman. Instead she reveals, "it didn't bring me any luck, but the man who gave it to me is charming. It's more like a truth medallion. Once you've touched it, you've got to tell the truth." I touch it and say, "then it is the man with the charm that is lucky. Lucky to be able to give it to you." I try to lift her out of her defeatist mood. "The bread never falls but on its buttered side, you know, Dana?" "I'm sure physics is responsible for that." "Yes, but the bloke who came up with that line never knew that. I think thieves and rogues have the best luck, if they do escape hanging. 'Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.'The wicked =will= pay, one day." "Dicky Lovelace, isnt' it? The more wicked, the more lucky."She says, "but then again, maybe luck has nothing to do with it. I have a soft spot for underdogs. Especially the poetic ones." Her face mellows with the drink, and I want to believe, her present company. She touches the keychain and I know she's thinking of the charming bloke. Whoever he is, I hope he's a real brick. "I wilt caution you, fair maiden, that poetry are for fools. 'The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact. 'T'is a disease." She bats her eyelids, drinking in the verse she knows it's from Shakespeare, and then surprises the hell out of me by reciting a line from Hamlet: "'This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.'Shakespeare was the wisest poet for a fool," Dana says with great admiration for the playwright, then just a tad more somberly, "justice will be served even if it isn't me who will serve it. That's all I know." "Justice will be served, " I echo, brimming with guilt. What an impossibly small world. Of all the bars in the world, she's got to walk into mine. Humphrey Bogart should be =this= lucky. I glance at my watch. It's getting late and she probably needs to work tomorrow. I pat the inside of my coat to find my wallet to pay for the drinks and I touch the stolen wallet instead. To thine own self be true, the words return with great familiarity. I could be economical with the truth or I could come clean. She's starting to pack her things into her briefcase, keys into her pocket. "Poetry is all I know." I say, then feeling very pinched, add "well, poetry and pickpocketing." Bless her heart. She has that persnickety look that tells me without a doubt she thinks I'm pulling her leg. "No, really. I could lift a bloke's jockstrap and he wouldn't notice." I take out the thinner one that be- longed to the spiv who accosted Dana earlier. Then I reach for the thicker one I stole from the man this morning. The last one is my own, and I open it to show her my library card for the Folgers Shakespeare library. She still doesn't believe me so I reach for her keychain and hold the flat round metal in my wrinkled fingers. "I stole them and I'm sorry I did. It's a barmy bad habit, but I want to do what's right. I usually send it back after a few days. Can you take it to the police for me?" Dana looks slyly at me and wonders for the umpteenth time if I am truly what I say I am. "Kleptomaniacs aren't usually bad people." She says. "You should get help." Her hands reach out to collect the two wallets and I have the decency to look contrite. At least I feel it. She opens the wallets to check for their identities when she suddenly laughs. She stops, staring at the identity card only to start laughing again. Harder this time. I am re- minded of Thomas Campion. 'There's a garden in her face, where roses and white lilies grow.' Her face is positively blooming. She wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. "I told the truth." I say. "I believe you." Dana is radiant, reaching over the table to hug me. I was all prepared for her to lower the broom and drag me back to the station. Her eyes are laughing as she crushes me to her bosom. "Of all the luckless men in the world, you get to pick Clermont George Berkeley Spender's pocket. That, Sir, is definitely more than luck. It's fucking talent." Oh my. I hug her back not knowing who the hell he is but I'm thankful I picked his pocket today. I rub her back and she wraps her arms around my middle. I can smell the tobacco on me and I'm sure she can too. I think I remind her very much of grandpa Scully even though she doesn't say it. I'm feeling pretty keelhauled but I don't wonder about what's actually affecting me. I'm gonna have a thundering hangover tomorrow but right now, I'm feeling pretty euphoric. The bill arrives and Dana puts her small hand to stall me. I look up to see the twinkle in her eyes. "The wicked will pay," is all she says. She pulls out a hundred dollar bill from Mr. Spender's fat wallet and tells Doolan to keep the change. Doolan is practically leapfrogging all the way back to the till. She turns to leave but wavers for a moment. A small smile is still lingering along the contours of her mouth. She looks right at me in the eye and whispers gently, "no more pickpocketing, okay, Basil? You did the right thing. But promise me, that was the last time." "I promise." She opens her palm but there's nothing in it. "Hand it over, sticky-fingers." Her voice is low. I look at her and knit my brows. "My keys, please." Oh, those. I give in with a shrug and retrieve her keys from my coat pocket. "Thank you." She takes them and walks towards the door, head high, her step even and sure. Dana looks back once more and Gor blimey if she doesn't give me one of those big-wattage numbers that make me wish I were in my twenties again. When she's finally gone, I open my other hand and look at the note I had palmed from her suit pocket. Even her handwriting was like Clara's. This was going to be the last time. I had promised. It said. And I pocket my lucky talisman. End. Thanks for reading. Author's notes: PDQ- Pretty Damn Quick Various quotes from Robert Herrick (Delight in disorder), Richard Lovelace (To Althea, from Prison), William Shakespeare (A midsummer night's dream, Hamlet) Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca)