Philip Lombard

It's been a long night, but Philip's pockets are well lined and even if the entire night hadn't been based on the idea of consequence free crime, he would have felt comfortable knowing he wasn't going to prison over any of the things he's done. They had been good, clean robberies. Quick and quiet. He hadn't been caught, although he'd been seen, but that's something entirely different.

Either way, he has enough money now to take him through a few more months, enough that he'll have to slip it into the safe in the back of his closet rather than putting it into the bank. It's enough that he'll be comfortable continuing to take Coop out for drinks or buying gifts for Sally and that is, quite frankly, the life he's interested in having.

For a moment before he heads into his apartment, he considers calling them and Neil to make sure they've gotten through the night safely, but there's time later. They'll be in touch with him soon enough or he'll see them within the next few days. It can wait until the morning, until he's put away his takings and settled back into the regular life this place offers. He wonders how many will be able to say the same, how many people in Darrow didn't completely ruin their personal relationships over the evening. There's no such thing as action without consequence and Philip is interested to see just how broken Darrow finds itself once the sun rises again.

His keys rattle as he unlocks the door to his apartment and he's only two steps inside before he realizes something is wrong. There's movement down the hall, in his bedroom and he heads in that direction and finds his closet door thrown open, his safe on its side, the door open, the remaining contents strew about the floor.

All of them except the last little bit of money he'd had in there and his gun.

The shot is very loud in his bedroom. He doesn't see who shoots him and he supposes it doesn't matter. They've taken the cash from the safe, he knows what they're here for, though how they know about the safe in the first place is beyond him. The second shot knocks him to the ground and he hits the edge of his mattress, then sits down hard on the floor. The third shot is the one that's going to kill him, he knows that the moment it happens.

Whoever has shot him leaves quickly without searching him and it gives him an odd sense of satisfaction to know they won't get the cash he'd taken tonight.

It doesn't hurt. He'd gotten that over with a long time ago. It is, in a sense, a return to what's always been waiting for him and he knows it's only in his mind, but he can feel cold water seeping into his clothes, the waves lapping against his shoulder, his leg. His blood seeps into the ocean and he laughs hoarsely as he hears Vera's familiar anguished scream.

That fucking bitch.

With a twisted grin, Philip closes his eyes. This was always coming for him, he's known it since the moment Vera shot him the first time, he's not such a fool as to think he can escape what he is forever.

The people in Darrow who participated in the night's events will learn that soon enough.

"I know what I am," he says to the empty room. "I always knew it would catch up with me."

There's blood on his lips, on his tongue. He can taste it in the back of his throat. He'll be dead in minutes and all he can do is, oddly enough, hope it's not Neil or Coop or Sally who finds him. They don't deserve this scene. None of them do.

"And here it is," he whispers. "Here it is."

More and more often lately, Philip finds himself generally displeased with Darrow. Losing his job with Todd Chad had been a bit of a blow, especially right before the big concert that would have inevitably resulted in a relatively decent payday, but he knows things can be worse. They can always be worse. At this point he still has a significant amount of money both in his bank account and stashed in his apartment, he's not quite at the point of having to be worried just yet, but he's not happy about his current state either.

It would be easy to go out, find something to help him deal with it. He could buy something or someone, but he's trying to make smart decisions when it comes to the money he still has on hand and the fact that he can't leave this place. It's not as easy to get away with things when he knows he can't get beyond the borders of the city.

A bar would be the obvious solution, but instead he goes to a liquor store and buys a relatively inexpensive bottle of whiskey. He drinks too much of it in his apartment, then leaves the bottle -- he has no desire to get arrested for wandering around with an open container -- and heads for the boardwalk. There are people on the boardwalk, plenty of them, people who'll distract him, take his mind off things.

And the boardwalk turns out to be exactly what he wants. The early evening air is cooler than it had been even only a few weeks ago and Philip is drunk, but not so drunk as to look it. He's not clumsy, he isn't stumbling through the crowd, he's still watching everyone as they go by, taking everyone in, trying to decide who he wants to talk to tonight.

He spots him after a few moments, a younger man, a few inches shorter than he is, thin, with long hair. There's something about him Philip can't quite put his finger on, but he moves through the crowd until he's standing beside the other man, watching the water for a moment over the side of the railing.

"Nice night," he says simply, his lips curving into a faint smile.

Without the money from Todd Chad, the work is certainly different.

It's more violent, for one, with Philip taking whatever he can get. It's usually something as simple as delivering a warning, roughing someone up, making sure to leave behind a few good bruises before he walks off into the night, and it's not as if he isn't used to it, he's done far worse things for money, but he'd had things so easy for a time.

Still, he has plenty of money at the moment and so he's not particularly concerned about his financial state. The work is harder and he'd quite enjoyed coasting, but there's a fair bit of enjoyment to be had in all this as well. To be had in wrapping his arm around someone's throat from behind and pulling them into the shadows where he can deliver a few well placed blows in near silence.

That isn't what he's doing tonight, though he supposes the job is just as illegal. There are four different men who owe money to a certain loan shark in the city and in this case, Philip's job hasn't been to rough them up or break their fingers or anything violent at all, although he's delivering a message all the same. Over the course of the night, he's broken into three different homes and left a framed family portrait in the middle of the kitchen or dining room table. On each photograph, a red line had been drawn across the throat of the man's wife and any children he has.

It's a little dramatic and silly, but Philip is being paid to deliver the portraits and so he does.

He's just finished the last and is easing his way out of the house when he realizes he's not entirely alone. There's someone on the street and although he can't be entirely certain, he thinks he may have been seen.

Things have not been going well for Philip Lombard of late.

The failures are not all on his part, though some of them may well be, and he's choosing not to dwell on them, because that will lead him absolutely nowhere, but even so, he can't help but feel the sting of them. Given his chosen lifestyle, it's not as if he hasn't found himself in a difficult position or two before this, but somehow being in Darrow makes it a little harder to stomach. There's no escape, for one. He doesn't get to pack his things and head off for another life in another city when things go sour here, because there's simply nowhere else to go. Given there are men who look like him, he supposes he could assume another life under another name if he had to, but that seems like a good deal of effort for little pay off.

And so instead he's been stewing. Trying to think of new ways to make money. The sword didn't pay off, his job as private security is finished, and while he's still managed to pick up work here and there, he'd rather liked the job he'd had. The pay had been good and the work had been easy and enjoyable. There's still plenty of money between his bank account and what he has stashed around the flat, but it's not just for the money he works.

For the first time in a long while, though, Philip feels unsettled. Irritated. Almost itching for a fight or a fuck or some combination of them both. He's looking to get drunk or high, something to make him forget just how trapped he is here.

"Christ," he mutters under his breath, pausing to light a cigarette before he begins to head for the boardwalk. There's always something going on there, something to take his mind off things.

The moving of the sword has been postponed twice for no particular reason Philip has been able to discern, but tonight is finally the night. Perhaps he should feel a little guilty, knowing it's Agent Reid's husband he's stealing from, but he doesn't particularly. They're not breaking into the store, they aren't planning on hurting anyone, they're just going to take the sword and then sell it. Simple.

Not that stealing the sword itself is going to be simple. Philip has to assume the people tasked with moving it are magic in some way and while such things won't bother Coop, he knows neither he or Han are quite so capable of avoiding magic thrown in their direction.

He's armed, his gun tucked into a holster at the small of his back, but he doubts he'll need to use it.

Over the past several weeks he's studied the late night traffic light patterns and he's found the best place for them to hit the van transporting the sword. It's lonely and quiet, Philip has yet to see a single person at this time of night, and even with the lack of traffic, this light goes red at the same time. Everything he's been able to learn about the plan to move the sword has the van exactly here at the right moment.

Then all they need to do is get inside, get the sword, and get back out.

He's smoking as they wait for the van, probably not the best way to remain inconspicuous, but it's not as if there's anyone else out here to see him besides Coop and Han. He isn't nervous. He's thinking about what comes after.

It's been a rather long day of running interference for Todd Chad and Philip has to admit he's nearing the end of his rope with the irritating pop star. He pays well, that's for certain, and Philip would hate to lose that source of income, but the job has gotten boring and annoying more than anything. He hasn't had another interesting night since the evening he was unfortunately stabbed while retrieving the information on his employer and he's rapidly losing his patience.

The thing about Philip is that he likes what he does. He likes being able to contract himself out for whatever a person might need and with Todd Chad taking up so much of his time with practically nothing, he's barely been able to do anything else. It might be just about the time for that to change, but he's going to give it a few more weeks and see how things play out before doing anything rash.

For now, however, he's found himself a bar. Not one he usually goes to, not one that's particularly flashy or impressive. There's a man behind the bar serving beer and while Philip had eventually been given the Irish whiskey he'd requested, he's under the impression the bottle has been here awhile and barely touched. It's not that sort of bar. There's a sports game on the television and it seems a good number of people are rather wrapped up in it with the exception of the young woman sitting alone in a booth.

That, as much as anything, seems like an invitation to Philip and he heads in her direction, reaching into his pocket at the same time. When he's close enough, he ducks down where he knows she'll see him out of the corner of her eye, then comes up again, holding his own lighter, as if he's just picked it up from the floor.

"I'm sorry to bother you," he says after a moment of looking around. "I don't suppose this might be yours."

Though Philip understands himself to be more or less on call for whatever Todd Chad and his team might need, he's also been given a relatively comfortable position in that they rarely call him unless they truly need him. He'd proven himself the night he'd gotten stabbed and he's been well paid both for his effort, his injury and his discretion, although he has told more than a few people what he was doing that evening, more than he's sure Todd Chad's team would be pleased about. What they don't know can't hurt him, however, and he'll deal with that situation when and if it ever happens.

For now they don't know. For now they believe they can trust him and they're paying him for it and for now they generally leave him be unless his skills are completely necessary. All in all, it adds up to a relatively comfortable life, one Philip enjoys a great deal.

So he's in a good mood when he catches sight of his favourite agent in a coffee shop that afternoon. He hadn't intended on heading inside, had been considering going to get a spot of lunch at the cafe just down the street instead, but at the sight of Reid waiting in line, he can't help but slip inside, coming up to stand just behind Reid without saying a word. He's quiet, peering over Reid's shoulder, watching as he texts his husband, though Philip is enough of a gentleman to avert his gaze so as to not read the contents of the message.

Let it not be said he's not capable of kindness every now and then.

"And how much caffeine does a profiler need to get through a regular Sunday afternoon?" he asks curiously after a moment, alerting Reid to his presence. "You can't be working today, can you? Tell me they let you have Sunday off. Isn't it still considered the Lord's day or have they done away with that nonsense finally?"

There are people in Darrow Philip knows quite a bit about. More than they might anticipate and enough, he's sure, for it to unsettle them if they ever found out. He knows where they go and when they go there, although he doesn't often frequent the same places himself, seeing little need to continue to follow someone after he's learned their patterns. Now and then he'll show up where he suspects they might be and perhaps they'll run into one another, but he's hardly desperate for anyone's attention.

And he has his telephone, too, which has become incredibly useful to him.

The bar he goes to that night is one Neil has been in a few times. He's not actually intending to run into him that evening, so when Philip spots him, he doesn't immediately go over. Instead he just watches and after a moment, becomes aware he isn't the only person looking at Neil.

There's an older man, ugly as sin, his nose looking rather like someone had hit it one too many times, eyes bloodshot and watery, who can't keep his gaze off Neil. What Philip sees in his expression is some combination of lust and anger. He's the sort of man Philip detests, one who seems on the precipice of exploding into senseless violence based on nothing more than a heavy dose of self loathing.

It's the sort of thing Philip could put an end to now if he wanted to, but instead he waits. Watches. Eventually he catches Neil's eye and lifts two fingers in a small wave. The man's gaze wavers, drifts from Neil to Philip and then back again, his scowl deeper still.

Philip has passed most of his time in prison sleeping and thinking of painful ways to make dear Officer Cooper pay for having arrested him in the first place.

Having been given a phone call earlier, he'd tried to call the real Coop, only faintly irritated to find he's really one of the few people in Darrow he can call in a situation like this, but the call hadn't gone through. He'd tried Agent Reid next, because he hasn't technically done anything wrong to end up in prison here and if anyone can get him out, he imagines it would be another law enforcement agent, but that call doesn't go through either, and it was at that point they'd told him he was done and forced him back into a cell.

He doesn't know anyone in this city. No one knows he's here, he hadn't bothered to tell anyone he was coming through, and now he's being held hostage in a jail cell for daring to cross the street at the wrong time. The officer who's arrested him looks exactly like the man he's been planning crimes with in Darrow and carries the same name, and from what he can gather there's someone here with his name, too, who manages to get arrested often enough, given that everyone keeps referring to him as Phil and acting as if they're old friends.

It's enough to drive a man mad, he thinks.

At least he's alone in his cell, though almost as soon as he thinks that, there's a rattling in the hall and then the door opens to admit someone else into the room. Philip squints against the light, looking at the new arrival, half hoping it's someone he recognizes, and he frowns when he discovers it isn't. Just another criminal, he imagines, someone else thrown inside for god only knows what. Perhaps looking at Officer Cooper the wrong way. He seems to arrest a fair number of folks around these parts.

"Hardened criminal or did you run into the overzealous cop?" he asks, her voice dry as he relaxes back onto his bunk. The man hardly looks like the type who deserves to be in here, but Philip supposes he could be wrong.