A Very Familar Face

[deb]

Name of Thread: A Very Familar Face
Characters Involved in Thread: Jess Nichols - Mirko Dragovic
IC Month Thread Occured: Late June
Brief Description of Thread: Jess shjows Mirko the Mayan hot spots while Jury is away dealing with other business.

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Stretching her arms over her head Jess looked aorund the bar before she dropped down onto the nearest stool, it was early as in the sun wasn't even up yet and she had barely gotten any sleep the night before. Between the Mayan's pushing their way into things and her own personal demons surfacing Jess was starting to feel like she was being dragged under water. Or at the very least that she was being wrapped in that warm fuzzy blanket that was home to all of your darkest fears, and then when you least expected it a hand reached up and grabbed you tightly wrapping it's hand around your throat and pulling you into the abyss of your mind. Yup early morning in Jess Nichols head was just a barrel of fun here lately and the only time she got a rest when she was toiling away at work.

That morning though she was doing a favor for Jury, meeting up with another one of Clay's boys and after the last one she was a little leary of this actually going down. Shifting on the stool Jess turned to look at the clock trying to make out the time through sleep ridden eyes before she furrowed her brow and then gave up.

Reaching over she picked up the cup of coffee that she had poured earlier bringing it to her lips before she felt herself tense slighlty at the sound of a motorcycle followed by a door opening and closing behind her. She didn't have a shot gun this time though it wasn't like that mattered, she knew where to find a gun if she needed it though upon turning around she stopped. He was huge, impossing, and frightening looking and yet she was almost positive that she had seen the man in front of her before. It had been years though, in fact she had been a lot younger than twenty-six but he almost had to be the same person. Drumming her fingers on the counter for a few moment she finally pushed herself up and made her way over to the mountain of a man.

"Looking for someone named Jess," she asked, still eyeing him as she tried to make out if she was right or not. She couldn't place it just yet but that didn't mean anything, it would come to her.

[lurker]

Mirko Dragovic rode like he was born on a bike. The highway stretched out in front of him and beckoned him onwards, out of Charming and out to infinity. His motorcycle rumbled under him; a steel horse for an outlaw on a lonesome desert road. He had the wind in his face and asphalt under his wheels and nothing on his mind. It was pure zen.

When he rolled up to the meeting place everything came flooding back to him; all of Clay's briefing, the trouble with the Mayans, the burden on his shoulders to set things right for the Devil's Tribe. He slowed to a stop, dirt crunching under his wheels, and killed the engine. He set the kickstand down, put his hands on his thighs and sat on the bike a moment and let out a huff of air. He wondered why those long, solitary rides always seemed to end too soon but promptly put his wonderings to rest. He had a job to do. He unclipped the chinstrap of his solid black helmet and hung it from the handlebars of his bike and ran a big, calloused paw over the sandpapery stubble on his jaw. He swung a leg over, stood up from his bike and stretched himself out before walking up to the door and pushing it open with a burly shoulder.

He stood just inside the doorway and let his deep dark eyes adjust to the light before sweeping them across the joint in a methodical, mechanical fashion. He sighted Jess as she made her way over to him and something flashed in the back of his mind; a twinge of familiarity.

She asked if he was looking for someone named Jess and he nodded stiffly.

"Da." He paused and cleared his throat and corrected himself in a deep flat voice. "Yes. You are with Jury? I am Mirko."

A beat. He tilted his head a degree to the left and squinted ever so slightly.

"We have met before, have we not?" he said in the stilted English of a non-native speaker.

[deb]

She wasn't certain of what he had planned on saying only that he had stopped mid statement, not that it bothered Jess but it had perked her curosity now and made her wonder. Shifting her weight slightly she nodded her head before she gave a faint smile. "I'm with Jury in the sense of I run errands for him and make sure that he can get what he needs done when none of the guys are around," she joked before she reached up pulling her hair into a ponytail and out of her face.

At least she wasn't the only one that thought they had met before which meant she hadn't lost her mind or started to slip.

"You look very familar," Jess replkied before she shook her head. "I can't place where I've seen you before though," that was still very much a mystery that she was trying to solve. "I might have done some work on a bike or two for you if you've passed through here." either that or they had met through her late husband, which was always possible. After all Isaac had been a likeable sort of guy and he had managed to make connections all over the place at one time or another.

[lurker]

"I was Nomad before. I have been out here many times. We have probably met one of those times." He shrugged his shoulders like the vague assumption was a good enough answer even though that feeling at the back of his head didn't go away. It was like having a word on the tip of your tongue but not being able to make that last connection. In any case, if he knew her and had a problem with her he would have remembered that. He was real good at remembering the bad stuff. So far, she was all right by him. He took a look around the joint while he fished a crumpled package of smokes from a pocket.

"I am to assist Jury with his Mexican problem," Mirko said in a tone that suggested his assistance was the kind that got real bloody. He put his eyes back on Jess while dexterous fingers plucked a cigarette from the pack and stuck it between his lips. He didn't light the smoke and he offered her one while he kept talking. The smoke bounced on his bottom lip.

"I also understand one of my brothers came out this way ahead of me. Did he meet with you also?"

[deb]

"Ray ... Shepard, yeah as of yesterday he was still lurking arounds up here not all that sure if he's still here or not now though," Jess replied before she shook her head waving off the cigarette, she only smoke when she drank and that wasn't something that happened often.

The man before her still looked so familar and she couldn't put her finger on it, there was something about him though that made him seem like she had talked to him. The accent, the size, yeah it was going to drive her nuts until she figured it out. Till then though it was down to business and that meant keeping her head on and not loosing her mind, as nice as that would have been to do. So much stress in the air, you could cut the tensions with a knife and that was starting to drive her up the wall and it was making her Las Vegas retreat seem better and better. Then again it was also the very same thing that continued to get put off everytime she managed to pack the bag and at that point she was considering just slipping off without telling anyone.

Clearing her throat Jess looked around before she motioned, and then offered a faint smile. "Can I get you anything?"

[lurker]

Mirko crammed the pack of smokes back into the pocket on his cut and lit the cigarette he had clenched between his teeth. The lighter, a silver flip-top sporting a patina of tiny scratches, looked toylike in the wide palm of his hand. He took a long draw from his cigarette and exhaled out of the corner of his mouth, directing the smoke away from Jess. The gray haze rose up and drifted apart and then it was gone. He slipped his lighter into another pocket and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops.

Mirko stood, listening to Jess, and might as well have been a statue. He didn't have the wandering eyes most bikers did. Sure, she was good-looking. It wasn't like Mirko couldn't appreciate the aesthetic value of a woman, but he was here on business. He took in every word, read what he could from her body language and tone of voice, and sorted what was important to his job from all the rest like the wheat from the chaff.

"Shepard." Mirko repeated and nodded. If he was still around, Mirko would have to talk with him and see what his take on the Mayan situation was. He mulled this over until she offered him something. He considered this as carefully as he seemed to consider everything else.

"Hm. Just water, I think. It is still early."

He stepped over to an ashtray and knocked the ashes from his cigarette. He watched the little gray flakes drift down and land softly in a pile. His eyes lingered on them and it was only his posture, not his expression, that made him appear thoughtful. Finally, he raised his head and put his eyes on Jess again. His mouth twitched like he was about to say something, but nothing came out. He seemed to reconsider it and came up with something else; business, of course.

"If I wish to find the Mayans outside of their clubhouse, where is it I should look for them?"

It had been a while since Mirko came out this far. Things changed. Remembering the Devil's Tribe turf was hard enough; damned if he could keep track what rocks the Mayans were hiding under these days. He took another long draw from his cigarette. There were other questions he wanted to ask, and maybe it showed, but Mirko was here to get his job done. He had never, and vowed he would never, let anything get in the way of the job.

[deb]

"I can show you some of the hot spots they frequent if your looking to get into a fight, but I'll only take you so far. I've had enough dealings with the Mayan's in the last two years that I really don't care what happens to them so long as they stay the hell away from me." She worried at times that if they found out she was still in Las Vegas and still hanging around in the Indian Hills what they would do to her, she still wasn't sure what had gotten Isaac killed in the first place, he by all accounts hadn't been in their territory so that was anyone's guess really.

Hanging Mirko a bottle of water Jess leaned against the counter as she looked at him. He was one of those guys that you could tell was just all business, they didn't seem to have time for anything else and maybe she took that as a personal challenge or maybe she was just that curious as to what made him that way. Straightening the things that she had gotten out before his arrival and putting up some of the things that had been left out from the night before, Jess let herself get lost in her thoughts for a few moments. She really needed to call and check on Kate soon and see how things where going and make sure she hadn't gotten anymore ideas about sneaking out or any of the above.

He looked like he had something on his mind and it would be a while before they could actually leave and go anywhere as there were a few things that Jess needed to check on and finish up, not to mention when she had turned the engine on her bike that morning something hadn't sounded right either. Grabbing a tool kit she nodded outside before she dropped down next to her own bike and then looked back at Mirko. "You look like you have something on your mind and it's going to be a while before we can get going, bikes making a funny noise," she explained as she shifted until she was laying on her back and could look up. Jess had a good idea what it was that was causing her the problem and it was what she got for not riding the thing more often.

"So if you have any questions go ahead and ask, kind of breaks up the silence and doesn't leave me listening to the what if's in my head," she offered half joking half serious. Curosity had gotten the better of her where Mirko was concerned but she wasn't one to push someone into talking and she wasn't one to try to force someone into saying something that didn't feel like. It was why most ofn the guys ended up talking to her about things because she didn't ask and she didn't tell afterward.

[lurker]

The Croatian brute rubbed at the sandpapery stubble on his jaw and took in everything Jess told him and processed it like a computer. Things were starting to click, little by little. He was almost sure he had it figured out how he knew her but he didn't say anything about it; not yet, anyway. Mirko didn't like saying things unless he was certain.

"I see," he replied to her concerns about the Mayans. "I can make things very difficult for the Mayans. They will not have the time or the manpower to cause anyone trouble when I am through." He made a noise like a short, sharp exhale of breath that way maybe supposed to be his version of a laugh.

She handed him a bottle of water and Mirko took it with a short nod and a low, muttered "Thank you". The big guy was always one to mind his manners; he may have been an outlaw but that didn't mean he couldn't have a certain kind of dignity about it. He unscrewed the cap and rolled it between his thumb and index finger and downed about half the bottle in two gulps. He watched Jess putter about the clubhouse while he slowly and deliberately screwed the cap back on the bottle one thread at a time. When she picked up the tool box something clicked in his mind again.

He followed her outside with long strides and heavy footsteps and stood a few feet away. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his back on the wall and stood sentinel while she worked on her bike. His forehead wrinkled in the closest thing he had to a thoughtful expression. He was quite certain now, but, how to phrase it?

"I think I remember now," he said after breaking his stare from Jess and the bike and looking out over the dusty scenery around them. "His name was Isaac, da?" He paused, looking back down at her. "Not that I knew him well, but, now I can place everything." He tapped his temple with two fingers and guzzled down the rest of the bottle of water and slapped the empty plastic against his open palm. The nagging feeling in the back of his skull disappeared.

[deb]

"Isaac was my husband, if you were hoping to talk to him though 'fraid you won't able to do that. Mayan's killed him about two years ago," she explained not looking up from the bike as she spoke. This was why the guy felt that she needed someone to watch her while this was going on, worried that the Mayan's might get some sick thrill out of it if they figured out she was still hanging around. Reaching down for a screw driver she looked over at Mirko for a few moments before she smiled at him and then went back to what she was doing for a few moments. It was a lot easier for her to crack a joke to avoid something being awkward than it was for her to sit there in silence. "Least you didn't remember me because of my brother," she joked.

Pushing herself up and dusting her jeans off she mounted her bike before she turned the engine over listening to it purr to life without the annoying clicking sound she had heard on the ride over there. That made her happy and was enough to cause her to look at her bike and nod her head before killing the engine once more, leaning against the handles now she looked back at Mirko before she smiled at him.

"If you want to go look at the Mayan hot spots I can take you but like I said I will only go so far, and I'm sure now you can understand. Not that you don't look like you would rip a limb or something off someone that gave you enough trouble but I'm not as big as you are," she joked reaching up to pull her hair into a ponytail before she looked around making sure that there didn't appear to be anything else that needed to be done. It was the truth though compared to the man in front of her she felt like she was the shortest person in the world when normally she didn't feel that way, of course as far as being intemidated went that didn't happen at least not with Jess.

Reaching up she fiddled with the necklace that she was wearing for having a lack of anything at all to do with her hands while she waited for Mirko to decide what it was that he wanted to do first.

[lurker]

The shift in Mirko's expression was subtle but noticeable enough. He lowered his eyebrows, angled his head down a degree and made a low noise in the back of his throat. No, he didn't know Isaac well, but the few times he conversed with the man were pleasant enough. Besides, falling to the Mayans was no way for anyone to go out, whether they were with the Sons or the Devil's Tribe.

"I am sorry," he said, but his voice was flat and his condolences seemed hollow even if he was being sincere. Still, she smiled and joked and Mirko figured he handled the situation properly.

He watched her get on the bike and he gave the motorcycle an assessing glance; shortly after, an appreciative nod. She evidently took care of the bike which was something Mirko could respect. His own motorcycle looked brand new. He cared for it like it was the only thing that mattered to him in the entire world. There was some punk in Charming with a broken nose who learned that lesson the hard way.

"I would like to see the places these Mayans frequent. We do not need to get very close. I will investigate further on my own, later."

Mirko stepped over to his own bike and dirt crunched under his boots. He slipped his mirrored aviators over his hard dark eyes and retrieved the jet black half helmet hanging from the handlebars. As he swung one long tree-trunk of a leg over the bike and sat upon it, he gave Jess a nod, like 'I'm ready, lead the way' and clipped his chin-strap.

[deb]

It had been a while since she had ridden, mostly because she tended to work all the time and it was often faster to just get in the car. Well there had been the other day but sdhe was trying hard not to think about that and the disaster that had become in the end, besides there was no use in crying over spilled milk and there was even less use in trying to mop it up with nothing but a hope and a prayer. It was kind of like mentally willing the glass not to fall in the first place and it didn't get you anywhere that you wanted to do. As the bike reached blacktop though it wasn't hard to tell that Jess had gotten back into the grove of riding again and well she was kind of enjoying it more than she would have thought she would have even given the current destination.

Pulling off to the shoulder of the road she looked back to make sure she hadn't lost her current company before she shifted so that she could actually see him better. "You'll find a lot of them there at night sometimes, it's where they go when they want to make their presence known and let the guys know their closer than what they should be." Sometimes she didn't understand why Jury hadn't done more to push them out before now, but the man was aging and she got the impression he just didn't want a part of that life anymore. "They won't come close to you from there though, they'll provoke you to step into their ground and try to take you on under their terms." Truthfully she had watched them after Isaac had died, why because she was hoping one of them owuld let it slip why they had killed him and all she had gotten where lude comments, nasty things being said, and the general idea of things they wanted to do to her if they got the chance too.

She watched him for a few minutes before she lifted an eyebrow. "You were in the military weren't you?" no his face didn't scream it but the way he held himself did and Jess was kind of curious as to whether or not she was right about that. She had figured as much about Raylan as well just from the way he held himself and Mirko seemed to be no different, still if she was right she got the impression that might have had to do with the stone cold expression chisled on his face. Either that or she was just trying to make herself more comfortable with being this close to the Mayan's, and just for the sole purpose of the fact she knew this would happen she had brought her gun with her though it was concealed underneath her shirt and out of sight.

"The best time to come here thought would be at night, they don't frequent it much during the day at all," she added turning her eyes back to the structure in the distance.

[lurker]

Mirko was as comfortable on his bike as he was on his feet. He followed Jess closely but almost lost himself in the ride. It was easy for his mind to just drift away with the wind rushing past him and the engine growling under him. But given the circumstances- the threat of Mayan attacks and the fact that he was supposed to be scouting their hangouts- he forced his mind away from the clear, empty serenity and rooted it firmly in the gritty reality of the situation.

Jess pulled off and Mirko pulled off not a second later and slowed to a stop on the shoulder. The engine rumbled, low and constant, like the background music of their scene. He listened closely to Jess, surveyed the area, made mental notes and nodded in the affirmative. So the Mayans liked to poke the sleeping bear. If they tried that grade-school antagonism with Mirko they wouldn't live to complain about the beating.

Her next question caught him off guard and it showed on his face if only for a moment. It was possibly the most that ever got through the stone cold mask of his. He composed himself and was silent for a beat or two, seeming to carefully consider his answer. He could just as well lie and that might be the end of the line of questioning but Mirko had a strange sense of things; the thought of lying about his military service didn't enter into his mind.

"Da. I was. A long time ago." He settled on the simple answer; true, but simple. He was relieved when the talk turned back to matters of business. He nodded several times.

"At night. Okay."

[deb]

Starting the ride again she made a u-turn going farther away from the area they had just been in and in the other direction, mostly because going any farther one way meant far more trouble than what it was worth and took them much more out of range for what Mirko was looking for than needed to be. Not to mention the fact that it meant going over a rather unpaved and bumpy road which was something that Jess had no desires to do on a motorcycle at any point and time in her life. She prefered open highway to rough terrian when riding and she liked to keep it that way if she could, thining for a moment she tried to think of where the next best place to look would be and that lead her to only one real conclusion.

Riding for a while with nothing more than open road and scenery she finally pointed to her right before continuing on for a few moments until they were safely out of sight though you could still see the structure in the horizon if you were tall enough and inclined to look hard enough for it.

"They like to spend time there too, though their not as much trouble when they do. You can normally find one or two of them here or there during the day but it's shut up at night," she explained as she continued to think biting down on her lower lip as she did so. The next location was the one that she dreaded the most however it was a needed evil if they were going to stop thing before they got any worse than what they could have been.

Pulling back onto the highway it took nearly a half an hour if not a little more before she stopped again this time killing her engine and removing her helmet before she pointed toward the building off in the distance. It was the Mayan's rat hole, or what they liked to call their clubhouse, though it was hard for Jess to see it as that given the trouble they'd given them all. Brushing the loose strands of hair out of her eyes she turned around before she perked an eyebrow and then shrugged.

"That's where they all spend most of their time, it's their little playground. Their clubhouse always had a ton of them there that are willing to shoot you full of holes or something if you spend long enough lingering around," she explained before she leaned against the handle bars of her bike. "if you can't find them anywhere else than this is where you find them."

[lurker]

Mirko's mind operated like a machine, sharp and accurate and organized but inflexible and uncreative. Every locale was filed away with every tidbit of information Jess provided and every observation Mirko made on his own. He analyzed the spots carefully for things like ambush points, structural weaknesses, security, blind spots; if at any point he could put his military training to use the came up with a plan for it. It wasn't that he was some brilliant strategist - he wasn't. It was just the only way he could think of a situation.

At last they rolled up some distance away from the Mayan clubhouse. There was a small voice in the very back of Mirko's mind that prodded him to just strap up, roll up to the clubhouse and Rambo the place like it was full of Serbs. But Mirko, of course, had enough good sense to not listens to that voice. He did stare at the place a long while after Jess said her piece about it, drawing up mental battle plans and picturing the kind of massacre that could happen inside.

Finally he turned to look at Jess and the expression on his face was as flat and boring as if he had been thinking about the crossword in today's paper.

"Very good. This will help. If that is all I think we can now return."

[deb]

"Actually if you remember the way back then I need to go open up shop before I start missing business," Jess explained before she smiled. Yeah she didn't mind helping Jury out but she was loosing hours she could be working and well that didn't help her pay the bills, and while she had a lot left over from Isaac's insurance policy that was just one of those things she wanted to save incase she actually needed it.

Nodding toward the rather large biker she started her own bike before pulling a U-turn so that she could go to work and finish up the damn Buick in her garage which she was certain was going to back in a few days. One of these days she was going to strangle that old man if she hadn't been digging into his pockets and taking money from him that was.