a tale of origins: haywood – rennegades backup

A Model Citizen #3

It was such a simple little thing. A smooth jar measuring barely a foot in height from the base to the very tip of the ears of the jackal headed lid. It was painted with bright and gaudy colors in blocks without any rhyme or reason. There were none of the hieroglyphs or stereotypical Egyptian imagery that he had been expecting.

In fact it was nothing like he’d expected at all. He had looked it over at least a dozen times, scraping his nails along the edges and the inside lip. He could find absolutely nothing that would indicate that this was anything other than an oddly shaped but otherwise every day porcelain cookie jar.

Maybe he had been projecting. Campisi had just looked so damned much like the old Mafia bosses portrayed by Hollywood, that maybe he has just imagined the whole under current of menace. Maybe he was just a regular old man looking to get a gift for a relative and unable to pick it up himself.

Maybe his imagination had run wild on him; there were no secret narcotics, no gun running, no adventure. As he picked the package up off of the passenger seat of his car and began the walk to the small apartment he had directed him to, James had to admit that maybe that’s all he had wanted. Travelling the world for his modelling job had been so exciting. He gone to places he had never thought he would, been to parties that he would never have been invited to back in college, done things he had thought only happened in movies.

But the excitement had long since worn off. He was bored.

The door swung open on his third knock, and a middle aged woman waved him into the home. “You must be James.”

“That’s what they tell me,” he tried to offer her a smile, but the state of the apartment distracted him enough to make it awkward and stilted. There was no way that anyone could possibly live here! The damn thing was glorified storage— every inch of it was covered in Egyptian or Middle Eastern artifacts. There were crates stacked upon crates topped with cardboard boxes and plastic bags.

Jewelry filled trays that lined the shelves that existed everywhere that a crate did not. A collection of swords at various levels of restoration lay stacked in a corner. On a small table in the middle of the room were a number of jars to match the one he had brought. Those, however, looked a mite more realistic than his.

“Excellent, excellent,” the woman was practically cooing, eyes locked on the jar in his arms, “May I see the new piece?”

“Uh… yeah, here.” He had to rip his eyes away from the framed papyrus that lined the walls. There was so much in this small room that he had to wonder if it was offsite storage for a museum, as strange as it sounded.

The woman delicately lifted the jar from his hands and inspected it carefully. As he had done before her, she ran her fingers over the lip of the jar; whatever she found brought a smile to her lips. Perhaps there was something more to it, something he hadn’t noticed? He was hardly the kind of person who would know what to look for in replicas.

She moved the few feet necessary to place the new jar on the table with the others, it’s colors garish and glaring against the older looking stone jars. It was one of those jars that she uncapped and withdrew a number of bills.

“Your payment, m’dear,” but she didn’t left go when he took it, “…although. I am more than willing to double it, if you would be so kind as to deliver a piece to one of my clients?”

He was going to inform her that he wasn’t actually a courier. He was going to say something pithy about how much easier it would be just to send it via FedEx or UPS or some such carrier. Hell, couldn’t she take it herself?

He was going to, but his mouth chose to move without his brain. “Alright.”

Her responding smile was so ungodly wicked that it sent a chill down his spine.

A Model Citizen #2

Part One

“So you are our young rising star, hmm?”

James lifted one shoulder in a dismissive half-shrug, and offered a wry smile. “I wouldn’t really consider myself to be a star, sir.”

Campisi laughed; it was a grating sound, rough and hoarse and tearing from his throat as though Haywood had said the most hilarious thing that the human race had ever come up with, and in doing so had startled the laugh out of him. It was a sound so obviously fake and forced that for a split second, James lost control of his expression. Annoyance flashed across his face, drawing his brow into a scowl and lip twitching as though he wanted to sneer. In the next instant it all smoothed away, once more buried beneath the mask of politeness.

Where-ever this was going, he had a feeling it would end up just as pleasant as that laugh.

The old man clapped his weathered hand onto the model’s shoulder, “Now now, my boy! No need to be so humble! Why Dean here tells me that you’re off to vacation in Egypt soon, so you must be doing something right!”

That brought a brow up in question, and James sent his agent a confused glance. It did not appear to be of any use, however— the agent looked as though the only thing he wanted to do right then was to escape this meeting. No answer would be coming from him, that was certain.

James frowned, but turned it into an awkward smile as he turned back to Campisi, “I— yeah. I did mention that to him. I didn’t realize it would be so interesting to company…” the model hesitated on the term, not quite certain of all that it could entail, “…contributors.”

Campisi smiled as though they were the best of friends, sharing some deep dark secret. “Ah, my niece likes to imagine herself to be something of an armchair Egyptologist. I usually try to get her a statute of some sort from Cairo for her birthday.”

There was an aura of expectation following these words, and James had to fight the urge to shiver. A chill was running down his spine and settling heavily in his gut; an unpleasant feeling that kept him from answering for a long moment. What came out was “That’s… nice…” in lieu of anything more intelligent.

“Yes it is, isn’t it?” the question was mocking, and Campisi had the look of a man who knew just how awkward his conversation partner felt. More to the point, he had the expression of someone who reveled in that awkwardness. “Unfortunately, I just won’t be able to get down there in time this year— surgery, you know how it is— and I was hoping that I might be able to entice you into lending a helping hand to an old man. You would be paid, of course.”

“Of course,” James echoed, though his voice barely rose above a murmur. The weight in his gut had turned into stone, and expectation made his mouth dry. Rumors had flown thick between the models, as they did with any so-called ‘show biz’ profession, that once one reached a certain point, the only way to further one’s career was to do favors for those higher up in the company. It was easy enough to assume such favors would have been of the sexual variety, and that it would be something that the female half of the company would have to deal with.

Now it would appear that his assumptions had been somewhat incorrect. While this could easily be something entirely innocent, James trusted his gut. Right now his gut was waving giant flashing neon signs that there was nothing innocent about this request. A man like the kind Campisi appeared to be likely had a hundred men on his payroll that could have easily done the job he was being asked to do.

“Mm, yes. Say… five grand? That would be upon delivery, obviously. Collecting the piece that I ordered for her shouldn’t take more than half of a day, I imagine. There is this most delightful little shop that makes these absolutely perfect replica antiquities. They are quite amazing,” Campisi caught himself then, shaking his head with a grin. “Ah, but never mind an old man’s rambling. Would you be interested?”

His gut said no. It said no in no uncertain terms, that doing this simple favor could bring nothing but trouble… but five thousand dollars was a nice chunk of change. All he had to do was pick up a tourist trinket in Cairo, and get it back to Campisi in one piece. It was undeniably tempting, just as it was undeniably something more than just a simple souvenir

Saying ‘no’ was the right decision. It would keep him out of trouble, and things would progress the way they always did. Even if it was entirely possible that it would mean more time in stupid outfits like the gnome get up.

James reached out and grasped Campisi’s hand before he could talk himself out of it with all the reasons this was a terrible idea. “Sure, why not?”

A Model Citizen #1

It was a simple job with an impressive and (more importantly) easy paycheck.

Really all that was required of him was to spend a few hours of every day in the gym, a steady stride, and a bland and unchanging expression that could be kept firmly in place under bright lights, unrelenting scrutiny, and flashing cameras. There were always those that claimed it also required a certain sense of shamelessness, of overwhelming pride or perhaps a lack of dignity, but that could be said of most jobs.

Wearing a gnome costume for the cameras overseas was far easier than spending nights unloading trailers and building up shipping pallets. Modeling was easy, and while James Haywood may have appreciated something that required a bit more effort on his part, there was something to be said about an “easy” job.

As with any other job it had it’s stresses and responsibilities; red eye flights across oceans were hell no matter that sort of business was on the other end of them, and glaring lights with flashing cameras could produce some absolutely wicked headaches. At the end of the day, however, James felt that a few ridiculous outfits and the cameras were well worth the pay.

It wasn’t the kind of “all day, every day” job that he’d once thought he’d have, but it paid well enough that he could relax at home with his new wife for a week or two between shoots and shows. It may have been more glamorous a job than he had ever expected to have, but it was a comfortable life.

Even if it did have a few responsibilities that were more annoying than had originally been advertised. He didn’t have the same kinds of pressure on him that his female colleagues felt; his frame was just too broad and defined to fit into the androgynous expectation that many male models fell into. Against his better judgement, he had even attempted to starve himself down at one point. It had been a fool’s gamble, but his agency hadn’t wanted to lose his face. Instead they ran in the other direction: buffing him up and presenting him as a power fantasy image. It had worked out spectacularly.

Which meant that some of the events that he was “booked” for were more Chippendale than they were Fashion Week. It could be frustrating at times, but a paycheck was a paycheck, and an after party was far more interesting than a bachelorette.

Or it had been more interesting right up to the point where his agent brought an older man forward to meet him. The agent looked… pained was the easiest description to go with. His shoulders were tense and his smile nervous, his hands fluttering about unusually; almost as though he didn’t quite know what to do with them.

“James, my boy!” the agent was licking his lips, mouth dry, “Allow me to introduce to you one of our company’s most prominent contributors: Laurence Campisi.”

The nervousness had James on edge, but not nearly as much as the smaller man— he couldn’t have possibly been more than an inch over five feet, if he was at all— did. The model kept his runway face in place, offering only a polite but disinterested “Pleasure to meet you, Mister Campisi.”

Campisi smiled a shark’s smile right back at him. He was dressed to the nines in a suit so new it had to have been made that day, every inch of it black. The crimson tie about his neck was the only spot of color in the gray haired man’s wardrobe. Altogether it gave him an ominous air that James could only let wash over him.

He refused to let himself be put off by one old man at a fashion show after party.

It wouldn’t be long until he learned just what a foolish thought that had been.

—————-

[notes: Going by wikipedia the last known boss of the Dallas Crime Family was Joseph Campisi. The FBI was not able to confirm that as far as my 10 minute attempt at research can tell, but the DCF has been considered defunct since his death in 1990. I took a stab at making up a fake relative just for this ‘verse]