Delusions Of Eden: Prologue

As I stepped from the train, violin case in hand and cigarette locked between my lips, I cast a wary glance around me. People mingled, as they had a tendency to do, greeting friends or loved ones that had come in on the line. The large clock behind me read eleven am, and just beneath that, in big bold letters, was a lie. Utopia, they called it. As if anywhere on this god-forsaken planet could possibly live up to such a name. Some people may have been fooled, some may have been suckered in to believing, but not me. I was young, especially for the line of work that I called a job, but the years I did have behind me had been rough ones, filled with harsh lessons and bitter disappointments. As I turned away and started off, I kept my eyes moving, logging and noting every detail that I could. It was a force of habit, but one that had saved my ass any number of times.
The man behind me with the mustache was indulging the prattling of his wife (trophy wife was probably more accurate but the distinction was unnecessary) as she calmly informed him how much she had spent on the new fur coat. His indifference to the substantial sum wasn’t an obvious indicator of his affair, but I’d tailed men who’d gone that route for far less. He was comfortable with the arrangement, and from her excited tones and ease of filling his obvious silence, she was as well. I dismissed them from my thoughts.
The man and woman just off from my right shoulder were a bit more interesting. His hands were in his pockets, whereas hers were crossed before her. Her expression made it obvious to anyone looking that she was upset, and though I couldn’t clearly see his face, I could guess from his body language that he didn’t rightly care. Tuning out the ambient noises around me, I focused on the pair and listened.
“,.,always look so mad when I get home?” The man asked in a familiar sort of way. He had asked this same question many times before. The woman’s soft huff clued me in that her response was just as common.
“Because every time you come home it’s always a day or two later than you told me when you left.” His left hand starts to come out of his pocket and I tense despite myself. His empty fingers move for her arm, but she deftly turns and avoids the contact. His tone changes sharply and I slow my pace just a little.
“Things ran a little longer than expected, what do you want me to say?” His feet shuffle the slightest bit and I note a pale blonde hair lying gently against the collar of his jacket. The woman, like me, is clearly a brunette. He uses his free hand to scratch absently at the back of his head. The gesture isn’t the self-conscious, fear of being caught, movement that I have seen so many times. Instead, it is a genuinely casual move. He feels no remorse for what I suspect has happened and, unlike the fur-coat couple, there is no indication of complacency in the woman. Either she doesn’t know or the tone is not that of an affair in progress.
“I just worry about you, Tommy.” The woman replies with obvious concern. There’s something there, in the way she made the statement that sets them apart from the fur-coat couple, and by the next line I understand. “Ever since Dad passed away, you know Mom worries too. Couldn’t you have found something closer?” I log the nature of their relationship and start off again even as I hear the man reply in a long-suffering way.
“Aw, come on Sis,.,”
I make it to the main doors and step through, the rush of wind fluttering both the tea-length skirt and long coat that I’m wearing. The sunlight that beats down on the city casts long shadows in the narrow alleys, and a slight odor of garbage and booze brushes against my nose. I hear a clatter from one of the alleys across the street and track along it until I spot a man stumbling his way out. He staggers when he hits the sidewalk, a brown paper bag clutched firmly in his hand. He spots me from across the street, though his eyes track with every passing car before coming back to me. He tries to whistle and manages to blow spit before his back hits the wall of a building behind him and he slides down to the concrete. Despite this, his grip on the bag never wavers.
A man in a suit worth ten times my own walks down the street as if he owns it, calmly stepping past the drunk in a way that suggests habit. He sizes me up with a good deal more focus than the drunk and his steps slow. I meet his gaze for all of a moment or two before he smirks and saunters off. He has business elsewhere and he knows that whoever I am, I’m not good for it. I shift my eyes up, tracking the height of the nearest skyscraper, unsurprised that it doesn’t bear the logo of any place I recognize. With my gaze locked on the top most floor, I pull the lighter from my left pocket and announce my arrival with a flare of orange light and a puff of smoke. Utopia’s no more perfect than Eden was, and even that place had its snakes.