Birds of a Feather (Montparnasse)

[earlybird]

Bellamy sat, hardened loaf of bread in hand, and turned his gaze upon the busy citizens of Paris. The city seemed livelier than it had been in the past few weeks. Shop owners opened up earlier than they had been and bar owners closed deep into the late hours of the morning. This provided excellent opportunity for Bellamy to make a sous or two, for no target was easier than a drunkard. Bellamy waited until men began to stumble outside onto Rue Saint-Denis.

Fools, all of them.

He didn’t understand how men with such a low degree of wealth could spend their last remaining coins on a bottle of expendable liquor. Bellamy was no saint himself, occasionally he and his cohorts would steal some wine or beer to ease the tension of everyday life, but to actually pay for something that trivial was a concept he simply couldn’t grasp.

Bellamy was picky. Every man that left the bar seemed to be drunker than the last, but nobody had seemed to be a good enough target. He took a bite out of the edible rock in his hand and winced slightly. The bread crumbled in his mouth, his tongue drying up at the very first point of contact. He thought back to the time he had been dared to consume the contents of an ashtray for a few measly coins, and couldn’t help but think this wasn’t much better.

Bellamy continued to wait until a large, round man barreled his way through the exit of the “Souris D'Ordinateur”. He sang a tune so poorly it had become utterly unrecognizable. The bottle of beer in his hand was still half-full before he threw it in the trash, waste that only someone of decent means could afford.

Perfect.

Bellamy opened his journal and quickly began sketching a portrait of the man. The sketch was rough, but it was drawn well enough to get the job done. He scurried over to the man as he made his way down the street. He ripped the drawing from his book and chased after him.

“Sir!” He said, holding out the drawing. “I believe 'zis is yours.” As the man turned around, the light jingling of metal brought a smile to Bellamy’s face. The coin purse dangled from the man’s belt like catnip, Bellamy would eat well tonight. The man blubbered back at him in a seemingly confused tone. Bellamy walked over and put his arms around the man’s waist.

“Sir, 'zis here is a portrait of one of zee manliest men in all of Paris.” He held it up in the air dramatically, his targets eyes followed without the slightest clue of what was going on. Bellamy’s fingers snaked carefully around to the coin-purse; the razorblade concealed between his forefingers began slowly working the string keeping the purse attached to the portly victim.

Bellamy doused the man in words of flattery and praise, but at this point, he could have been telling the man that he was asleep and it wouldn’t have mattered. The man had retreated into his own mind, his eyelids were heavy and his speech slurred. This was almost too easy.

As the string finally snapped, Bellamy caught the small bag and quickly slipped it into his pants. “You know what?” said Bellamy. “I’ll let you have 'zis one for free, but just 'zis one!” Bellamy handed the sketch over to him, and he was seemingly grateful. Bellamy took a quick look around before taking another bite into the bread and making his way down the street, hoping to never have to see his latest target ever again.

[MICHEL MONTPARNASSE]

The Square was an excellent place for pickpocketing or for finding a target to kill, but by nature far too open to be usable for the actual killing. Montparnasse had become adept, then, luring his victims off into various side-streets, alleys, and underground passageways where he would not be interrupted by the unwelcome shouts of the police—or even some hysterical woman. He stretched, almost lazily, annoyed by the heat of the morning sun radiating across his back and shoulders through his dark jacket. Normally he would have retreated back to the abandoned flat he inhabited by this time, but with the longer days there was more prey about in daylight. He squinted toward the sky for a moment, wondering if the clouds would roll back across the city.

Montparnasse recognized the scruffy thief with the drawings, and paused for a moment to lean against the wall of one of the buildings and watch his antics. It was a simple enough trick, though not one Montparnasse had made use of even as a child—it required paper and pencil, as well as enough talent with them to seem almost believable. His talents were quite definitively elsewhere, and he found it easier to use his charm or his reputation as a lure than to play pickpockets' games.

He straightened up to follow Bellamy when he saw that the young man had succeeded in his game. The thought that he could intimidate a bit of the money out of him tempted him, bringing a little smirk to his face. That was one of the advantages to his place in Patron-Minette; the gang allowed him a little more freedom to steal from his fellow thieves as long as those thieves operated outside the gang's sphere of influence.

“Nice trick,” Montparnasse cut in as his path intersected with Bellamy's. He made no immediate threat of taking the other young man's earnings from his trick. That would come in a few moments, if the opportunity presented itself. He knew well enough that Bellamy would not fall for any attempt to lure him off—it would take blind stupidity on his part not to recognize Montparnasse.

[earlybird]

Things were never easy, not here in Paris. Here Bellamy was, innocently going about his daily business, and now his spoils were at risk of being claimed by one of the most infamous criminals in all of Paris. Bellamy had heard of Montparnasse, and had even witnessed a few of his devious acts in person. Bellamy knew when he was out of his league, when to stay in his lane. Unfortunately, it seemed as if Montparnasse had other plans.

Bellamy considered an immediate about-face and thought the best option may be to sprint away as fast as he could. He knew the area perfectly; every alleyway, every climbable wall was imprinted in his brain in case of emergency. But being caught climbing in the middle of nowhere wasn’t something he wanted to do, not when being chased by such a publicly known murderer. As he considered fleeing, Bellamy felt slightly disgusted with the thought that he needed to run from anyone without a badge. He looked at the dirt between his toes briefly before staring up at the gaudy deviant with a smile.

“Some of 'zee best tricks are 'zee simple ones, really.” Bellamy showed Montparnasse a polite bow of respect, keeping his eyes up as his head lowered just slightly. He looked around the square to make sure there were still witnesses in sight. Perhaps there weren’t as many as he had liked, but still, there was enough to ensure he wasn’t going to murdered in broad daylight. Atleast, that is what he had hoped.

He slipped the coin-purse into is pants, hoping that this certain region provided a boundary that Montparnasse would not cross, if it ever came to that. As Bellamy went to speak again, he purposely added a tone of unfamiliarity. Surely, he knew who Montparnasse was, but he had never had any direct interaction with him in the first place. Perhaps it was time to play dumb.

“So what brings such a well dressed gentleman like yourself out to a place like 'zis? Maybe a beet of early-evening entertainment?"

[MICHEL MONTPARNASSE]

For one moment, it seemed as if the other young man was going to flee. Montparnasse hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his own coat, pleased to see that Bellamy had apparently read the situation better than his initial reaction had suggested. He watched him in silence, listening as he spoke. Something about him annoyed Montparnasse, and he thought it had mostly to do with the young man's apparently faked lack of recognition of him.

The thing was that the boy's trick was easy for people to become wary of, but the stupid ones would always fall for it. Or the drunk ones. It lacked the ferocity of Montparnasse's own tactics, though he was glad that this scruffy figure would not anywhere near approach his own notoriety on the darkened streets of Paris. But the drunk and the terminally stupid were the best targets for any sort of crime, Montparnasse supposed, and he had utilized such knowledge long before he had named himself for a city district.

He pretended that his attention had been drawn elsewhere, and for a brief moment the change was real. One of the assorted strumpets that found conditions as suitable for their trade as the thieves found them for theirs had caught his eye; a pretty thing, dressed provocatively and with prettily curling hair. A second glance told him that she in all probability was diseased, and Montparnasse could do better than picking up illnesses from common street whores.

“Entertainment? I suppose.” Montparnasse's eyes flicked back toward the other thief. He enjoyed being taken for a gentleman, but he knew what it meant to be a pickpocket well enough to suspect that the ignorance was only a front. Meant to protect this scraggly specimen should Montparnasse take it into his mind to torment him. That was senseless; there were far more lucrative targets infesting the square already, and something as lean as a pickpocket was hardly the dandy's favored prey. “I could turn you in, you know,” he added, a wolfish grin playing its way across his lips. Of course, he didn't really want to come any closer to the police than he suspected the 'artist' did, but it was fun to try to elicit fear.

[earlybird]

"Turn me een?"

Bellamy tried to hide his smirk, failing miserably in presence of a man who had been said to cut out someone's tongue just for laughing. He knew he was bluffing; but he couldn't seem to figure out why he would lie. Maybe he had planned to extort him out of his prize? But Bellamy had assumed that if he really wanted what he had, he would have taken it by force. He quickly found himself a victim of his own curiosity. It was clear that this had become some sort of mind game, and Bellamy's ego wouldn't let him run away from a challenge.

"That would require you running after me, catching me, finding an officer, and proving my guilt. That seems like a lot of work for a man een pretty clothes."

At this point it almost seemed like Bellamy was challenging him, but he couldn't resist. His ego blossomed as he was tempted to poke and prod at the lion.

"And what would zee public say eef ze great Montparnasse had become a sneetch?"

Bellamy smirked as he let his facade fade away. What was once a look of brief intrigue had turned into a cocky smirk.

"Are you a gambling man, Monsieur?"

[MICHEL MONTPARNASSE]

“Simply that I had eliminated a rival, and not become a snitch at all,” he returned the smirk with a cold glare. The other man was right, of course—he was hardly likely to chase down a policeman to turn in another thief, especially in a place he liked to frequent sometimes. It was easy pickings, though only small game—and most were aware enough of him to be wary. It stroked his natural arrogance to be recognized, even if it could be dangerous. “You have a point,” he admitted, though it was hardly a surrender. “You would slip away by the time I returned, and I would have risked my clothes for nothing.”

Montparnasse almost tilted his head like a little boy at the question of whether he was a gambling man. He stopped himself, not wanting to tarnish his image of respectable dandyism. “A gambling man? Well... perhaps. In what sense do you mean?”

He had been good at the gambling games common street children, but it was easier to steal a fortune than to win one, and most of the gambles he'd taken more recently were based simply on what he could manage to steal. He was cautious of any offer made by a fellow thief, and Bellamy seemed exactly the ragged, dirty type he tried to distance himself from.