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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG
Pairing: Elizabeth/James. Others later.
Feedback: Good lines, bad ones, etc.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Film noir AU. No specific time period in mind; staying true to genre and not to history. Port Royal didn’t have a devastating earthquake.
Summary: Will Turner was an average workingman until some blonde fell into his lap.
***
It was a drizzly, depressing kind of day where the front page had two bridge-jumpers and a war touching off somewhere in the world. Caribbean it might be, but travel agency brochure it wasn’t. At least, not in the parts Will Turner frequented.
In the old colonial days, he might’ve been known as a craftsman, a respected if common member of society. But in the shiny new days of the modern age, anyone who got their hands slicked up in black grease weren’t nothing but cornerside garbage, according to Anamaria. Usually sarcastically.
He fixed cars. She handled all the messes. And since they worked in the shady end of a shady town—even the palm trees went grayish—there were a lot of those. Some of the crumpled front ends came in with dried blood in the folds of the metal, some with guns in the glove compartment. But between the two of them, they managed to steer clear of all and sundry’s grudge-matches while still turning enough of a profit to survive.
For some reason, she liked him. Anamaria was a ride given on a monsoon night that had never quite moved out, and considering how close Will had been to getting dumped off a dock at midnight before she’d come along, he was glad to have her. Plus she was funny, sexy, capable, and kept him straight. Like now.
Fire-engine red nails splayed over a scrap of paper, enameled tips brighter than the paint job on the canary-yellow dreamboat car on which he’d just finished working. Other hand on hip, Anamaria tipped a pugnacious chin at him. “Goes to 888 Aztec Drive, and be quick ‘bout it, vanilla-bean. We’ve got five more jobs today.”
“And they’re all done and ready to be driven back to their owners,” Will placidly replied. Of course, working where they did, they couldn’t expect their wealthier and more notable clients to actually pick up the cars. Will didn’t mind so much; it was nice to have a chance and cruise town in the best money could buy. Only walking back was hard, since even his decent clothes invariably stood out against the background of a posh neighborhood. Good thing Port Royal was a compact place.
Will wiped off his hands on a rag and carefully set his wrench back into its slot before he took the scrap. That went into his pocket while he was checking his pants for stains; after he’d decided they were passable, he headed for the closet they called an office.
She followed behind and nitpicked at the black marks on his t-shirt till he pulled it off and substituted a fresh one. “I’m just saying. We’ve rent due.”
“And it’ll get paid. The Verbinskis are good tippers. Hell, I might even get enough to take us out tonight.” He shot a winsome smile her way as he buttoned on a short-sleeved shirt and tucked its tails into his trousers. “Hear there’ll be a good singer at The Smoking Mirror.”
Anamaria’s hand twitched as if for a cuff at him, but her mouth twitched faster and laughing, she sashayed off. “Don’t you be charming me, white-face. You should know better than that by now.”
And Will did. As a last touch, he threw on a linen coat and a fedora that had seen far better days, but since it still kept the sun out of his face and the police off his back, he’d kept it around. Threadbare and without a hat automatically chalked up a vagabond rep, but with a hat meant some kind of job.
The rain drummed light and soft on the windshield as he drove towards the wedding-cake houses of the old rich, who had long since lost their colonial lord- and ladyships but who still acted snotty towards the poor and condescending towards anyone with skin darker than beach sand. Probably that was why Anamaria liked Will—he talked with an almost-gentry accent thanks to his mother marrying down to a seaman, but he hadn’t been brought up with the blinders of his maternal background. Besides, everyone with any brains knew that the real Caribbean, the one that stayed around past the picturesque dawns and the yacht-parties, was long past being Europe’s playground. Maybe it wasn’t front-page news yet, but that was only a matter of time.
And Will’s reflexes were the same thing. His eyes saw the flicker of gold and his foot jammed down on the brake, going so fast he caught his toes on something. Then that somehow slipped free, nearly breaking his toes, and the car swerved on water, glided to a panicky stop halfway across the road. Luckily, it was an empty one.
Will collapsed out of a rictus he hadn’t even known he’d been holding and slumped back in his seat, working up the strength to go out and look. While he was doing that, the door whipped open and the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen toppled in. That she was soaked through with bedraggled curls plastered to her face made little difference.
“Oh, thank God! I need—” heaving pant, door slamming shut “—a ride—” breasts swelling against tight wet silk “—to La Perla Negra.”
Which snapped Will out of her bosom. He jerked his head up, a little flushed from embarrassment, and took in the rest of her. “La—La Perla Negra?”
“Please.” She smiled and laid a long-fingered, elegantly slim hand on his arm. “I’m late for a very, very important meeting. And my car—broken down—please.”
When dry, her clothes easily would’ve went for a price that would feed ten families down in the slums, so La Perla Negra seemed…considerably downwind of her, socially speaking. But her eyes were large and pleading, and it wasn’t too much of a detour.
“All right,” Will said, and he was quite proud of himself when he got that out with only a little stutter.
The rest of his attempts at conversation weren’t nearly so successful; she occasionally nodded or shook her head, but mostly laid against the seat and stared out the window at the glimpses of sea between the houses. A small, enigmatic smile remained on her face from the moment Will agreed to the moment he pulled up to the club. Only then was it subsumed in a quiet, intense, “Thank you.” She flung herself across the seat and kissed him full on the mouth, all sea-spray and orange candy, and then she was out and running over the sidewalk.
It took several seconds for Will to recover. By the time he had, she was vanishing out of sight in the company of a strange, gypsy-like man, and the clock was telling him he had seven minutes to make a nine-minute drive. Where she’d sat, gleaming puddles of rainwater reproached him.
Half-hearted swear tucked into his cheek, Will hastily mopped up with his coat, then shucked it back on and suffered the crawling sensation of wet linen while he sped the rest of the way. He made it only five seconds late, but the owner was two minutes so in answering the door, so as it turned out, Will didn’t need to make up an excuse for his soaked clothing.
After paying the rent, he did have a bit extra and Anamaria did get a night of her favorite music, fast smoky jazz. As for himself, Will nursed a single beer in a dark corner and let the laughter and fun flow past him because he was busy musing on hair like the sun. He did have the time to, since the police didn’t get around to him till the next morning.
They showed up just as he was flipping the morning paper to the headlines: BRIGHT STAR OF SOCIETY FALLEN! Socialite Elizabeth Swann, a fixture of Port Royal’s dashing set, has vanished as of yesterday afternoon on the eve of her marriage to up-and-coming naval officer James Norrington…
“’lo, Turner,” said Detective Rodriguez, occasional coffee-companion. His fingers were the ones holding down the top of the newspaper so Will could see his partner, Detective Koehler, notable hardass. “We need a chat with you.”
***