Fun with the Resevoir Syndicate
Madness in the Tarantinoverse continues. Won't you join the Reservoir Syndicate in Part Two of the hijinks? Come on in...
Part Two
Elle Driver tucked her cell phone into her front coat pocket after having checked the message O-Ren had left her one more time. The Reservoir Syndicate. Yeah, this looked like the place. She entered the bar briskly, taking a quick look around while not paying much attention to anything but O-Ren, to whom she said, “Well, well, well, would you look who it is? Sorry I missed your call, I had a little something else to tend to. You know how it is.” She laughed somewhat mockingly. “Interesting little hole in the wall you’ve found here. Can’t say it does anything for me, though.”
O-Ren was not the sort of person to display her emotions but, when the familiar golden-haired figure with one eye stepped into the establishment, she grinned with some degree of happiness.
“Elle, what a pleasure to see you here,” she remarked. “I was hoping that you might come join me. Yes, I know, the House of Blue Leaves this place is not - but it has a certain dirty charm that grows on you…like a fungus of some variety, but a charming fungus at that.”
“You can say that again,” Elle responded. “As for this place being a fungus, well, it’s a fungus of huge proportions. Get a maid, will you?”
White frowned a bit. He didn’t take kindly to chicks referring to his bar as dirty or anything along the lines of a fungus.
Blonde pivoted, quarter-turning, and looked at Elle from the corner of his eyes as he drank and fooled around with the juke box. “A maid, huh?” he commented. “That sounds like a great idea. Thanks for volunteering, you can start tomorrow.”
Elle folded her arms. “Excuse me? You smart-assed bastard…”
O-Ren smoothly stepped in and said, “Gentlemen, I introduce to you Ms. Elle Driver.”
White was already taking a dislike to Elle but he was a civil man, if nothing else. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Driver,” he said as they shook hands. “I’m Mr. White.” Huh, she’s got quite the grip there for a lady. “O-Ren, I take it she’s an old friend of yours?”
O-Ren gave an elusive smirk and responded, “Elle and I have something of a long history.” She and Elle exchanged amused glances. “We’re dear old friends. We…went to high school together…”
“High school, yeah,” Elle mused, barely concealing her glee at the euphemism. “That was ages ago but it all seems like just yesterday. I was the resident bitch, queen bee, you know? I caused many a problem for everyone and had a grand old time doing it. Those were the days.”
Blonde laughed quietly to himself, not bothering to introduce himself to the new broad. He’d had enough of the “hello and how do you do you do?” bullshit for one day. If she wanted to know who he was then too bad, she was just going to have to ask for him to be introduced. Resident bitch, indeed. A few other titles for her came to mind and they were all exceedingly more colorful than that. He turned his back on her and minded the song list.
Orange stepped out from behind the bar tentatively, not exactly sure what to make of O-Ren’s old acquaintance. White didn’t like her, he knew that instinctively. Blonde’s reaction was harder to figure out. Brown? Where the hell was Brown? He’d pulled a vanishing act like ice cream on an August afternoon. Oh well, might as well…
“Hi, I’m Mr. Orange,” he said. Shaking her hand, he could have sworn she was trying to prove her grip was stronger. “Good to meet you. I know the place looks a bit on the messy side right now but we’re still fixing it up for the grand opening. It’ll look a whole lot better once we’ve gotten settled in.”
O-Ren looked at Mr. Orange and inwardly grinned with amusement. Now I understand why White hired me to watch over him; a pup in the presence of wolves.
“Yeah, nice to meet you, too, Mr. Orange,” Elle said sarcastically. She brought out her trusty little notepad and began to take a few notes. “I should hope you fellows have the place cleaned up soon - you know, on your own - because you won’t attract much business otherwise.”
Mr. White narrowed his eyes. Yeah, I definitely don’t like her.
Orange scratched the back of his neck and glanced away. I don’t think she likes me very much.
O-Ren sighed in the slightest. Elle never was what you could refer to as a “people person.” I wonder if she’ll get along with anyone here? “While I have seen cleaner and more organized establishments, I’ve also seen worse.” She paused, sniffing the air. “Although there an odd musty sort of smell around here.”
White shrugged and retorted, half-jokingly, “It adds character.”
O-Ren cracked a faint smile. “Far be it from me to tell you how to operate your business, but a little style goes a long way.”
White’s grin widened a bit. “Shit. You wouldn’t be telling me how to run my own bar, would you?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“But I do think you wouldn’t know elegance if it came up and kicked you square in the back.”
White raised his eyebrows. “Is that a fact?”
O-Ren smiled, showing that she had only been teasing, and he chuckled.
Elle, on the other hand, just stared at White, blinked, and scribbled more notes in her little paper pad. And the Stealer’s Wheel tune of “Stuck in the Middle with You” came in over the speakers for the second time that day.
Orange nodded to himself, watching them all posture and growl like animals jockeying for positions in the pack. He didn’t really feel the need to be a part of any of that. He caught White’s eye and said, “Yeah, I’ll be in the back if anyone needs me. Only the bottom shelf liquors have been stocked.”
“Let me give you a hand with those cases,” White said, moving in Orange’s direction. He couldn’t have been more grateful for the distraction. “If I hear this song one more time I’ll go crazy like Blonde.”
Mr. Blonde, who had nonchalantly danced his way over to the pool table and was beginning to set it up, just laughed and finished his drink.
***
Once in the back store room with Orange, White pulled out his comb and ran it through his hair, muttering angrily, “You know, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you push that woman/man thing too long and it gets to you. It just gets to you in different ways in different spans of time.”
“I take it that they’re getting to you?” Orange inquired, hands in his pockets.
“Just that Elle bitch, O-Ren’s on the level.” White put the comb away. “Shit, who does that skinny cyclops think she is?”
Orange tilted his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “I wonder how Blonde’s going to handle her?”
White laughed. “Now that’s something I’d like to see: a battle between assholes.”
They lit themselves cigarettes and lingered by the half open store room door, where they could still hear everything but not be seen unless someone walked up and directly peered in.
“I don’t feel like going back out there just yet,” Orange commented. “What about you?”
White smirked and held up his cigarette. “I’d rather put this out in my eye.”
***
Meanwhile, Blonde casually sauntered over behind the bar and helped himself to some ice and soda to go with the rum he’d poured into his now empty glass.
O-Ren made a note of Blonde’s arrogance, which would have infuriated her were she not friends with Elle and thus accustomed to such behavior. Also, he was too amusing for her to dislike him too much; quite along the lines of how Budd was too entertaining for her to be mad at him for more than a minute. Besides, she and Blonde had reached an understanding and O-Ren did not quarrel with those she had an understanding with unless they gave her reason to.
Elle, on the other hand, was a different story. The word “understanding” had very little space in her mental dictionary in any definition. She furiously scribbled away in her notepad, every now and then shooting a venomous look at Blonde before turning the page. He hadn’t bothered to say his name, or title, or whatever, but she would get that information from O-Ren later. He was irritating her just by being in the same room. There was just something about him that rubbed her the wrong way. Hatred at first sight, almost. And when Elle got annoyed she liked to piss off others so she wasn’t the only one in a shit mood.
Not glancing up from the paper, she raised her voice a notch so it was loud enough to definitely be heard through doors and quipped, “Those friends of yours sure are taking their sweet time back there. Kind of makes you wonder what they’re doing.”
Elle was, if nothing else, a keen observer, and now waited for White and Orange to emerge from the back store room, aggravated with her for having picked up on their little game without either of them ever telling her.
***
But neither White nor Orange made much movement to leave the back store room.
White’s expression went from irritated to bewildered to amused as he remarked, “Damn, she must have one hell of a hard time finding a date.”
Orange lazily blew a smoke ring, grinning mischievously. “I say we stay back here longer just for that comment.”
“Hell, we could always sneak out through that window in the corner if we really wanted to.”
“Yeah, but why would we want to?” Orange looked around at all the cases surrounding them, containing dozens of different kinds of alcohol. His impish smile grew. “Because you know Blonde is out there slowly decimating our rum supply. What’s stopping us from helping ourselves to a bit of the stock, as well? I mean, what’s good for the good is good for the gander, right? Why should he have all the fun?”
“That’s not exactly the most responsible thing to do.”
“We can be responsible tomorrow. Let’s just get drunk tonight.”
White smiled back and rested a hand on Orange’s shoulder, saying, “I love it when you think like that.
Fuck it, let’s get wasted.”
He then proceeded to break open a bit of Maker’s Mark for himself and some Southern Comfort for Orange. They toasted bottles and got to drinking.
***
O-Ren turned her head and furrowed her brow mildly, thinking she heard laughter coming from beyond the store room door. Elle’s statement did not have its intended effect and she huffed in disappointment.
Blonde chuckled under his breath, regarding Elle as he removed the billiard balls from their case. “Nice try there, Girly, but no dice.”
Elle stopped writing and stared at him. “What did you just call me?”
He smirked. “Girly.”
She narrowed her eye and closed her notepad, slowly walking up to him. “I don’t take kindly to stupid pet names, buddy.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you take kindly to, Girly.” He tossed the 8-ball from palm to palm, grinning smoothly, and put his foot up on the edge of the pool table.
“Care to say that again, asshole? How about I shove that eight ball up your ass?”
“I’d like to see you try.” He rested his elbow on his knee and moved the word around his mouth as though he were relishing the taste. “Girly.”
“Fuck you.” And with that, Elle grabbed the bottle of rum that had been sitting on the lip of the pool table and threw it to the floor. Glass and whatever was left of the rum shattered and splashed in all directions.
O-Ren stealthily moved to the side. She was loyal and backed up her friends in a fight, yes - but only in those skirmishes that she saw as being worthy. This was not a worthy fight. This was another brawl that Elle had gotten herself into. O-Ren would remain uninvolved. The fray was not hers. Elle was on her own.
Blonde’s pale blue eyes turned into two points of ice. He laughed again but the sound was unnerving, low and unhinged. “Bad idea, Girly. Don’t touch the fucking rum.”
He pulled the straight razor he always kept in his cowboy boot and flicked it open with surprising speed. Elle reached into her own coat for a weapon but Blonde’s hand whipped out and caught her around the neck. The struggle halted with the same abruptness that it had started with when he pressed the razor’s edge up against her jugular.
“Now, the way I see it, you have two options. The first one is you go and get me another bottle of rum before cleaning up this Goddamned mess that you went and made on my otherwise neat floor. The second one is that I use this razor to slit your throat wide open and ruin that pretty white outfit of yours with a few quarts of your own blood.”
If looks could kill Blonde might have been dead from the nasty glare Elle was giving him, but he had gotten the drop on her and was stronger than she had anticipated. She growled in the pit of her throat, feeling the sharp bite of the blade as he pushed it against her skin for emphasis.
“So what’s it going to be?” he asked.
They stared each other down for a while before Elle blinked.
“Fuck you,” she muttered, and then added nearly inaudibly, “I’ll get your fucking rum.”
Blonde grinned and released his grip on her neck, and stepped back with his arms out in a shrugging sort of gesture. Elle curled her lip at him and rubbed the spot on her neck where the straight razor’s blade had left a single bead of blood standing on her skin. He folded his arms, weapon still in hand.
“I think you made the right decision,” Blonde said. “I’m in the mood to mix it up a bit so get me some of that Appleton Jamaican rum.”
O-Ren covered her mouth with her hand to conceal the smile that she couldn’t repress. Yes, it was wrong to kick a person when they’re down, but there was just something so entertaining about watching Elle grumble and trudge behind the bar to fetch Blonde’s bottle of rum.
“Shut up, Ren,” Elle said, narrowing her eye at her friend and former DiVA teammate. “Not a word out of you, not one word.”
Blonde smirked like the Devil was at his shoulder whispering dirty jokes. “Hey, tell you what: while you’re back there, just make me my drink. So splash some of that nice Appleton in a glass with some Coke and bring it back here. But not too much ice, I don’t like my drinks watered down.”
Elle looked like she was about to hurl another bottle at the bastard but changed her mind. She’d get him back in her own special way soon enough, some dark and devious way that sucker-punched him when he least expected it and really made him understand just who he was dealing with. So Elle sneered and made Blonde his Appleton and Coke.
Just you wait, you arrogant motherfucker, I’ll get you for this.
Unable to help herself, O-Ren glided up to the bar and inquired of Elle, teasing with that grin that she hadn’t been able to control, “Oh bartender, could you tell me what brands of sake you have?”
Elle just stared at O-Ren. “I hate you.”
To be continued...
And in case you weren't paying attention the first time it came around, here's a link to the intro: Part One: Welcome to the Syndicate...
Part Two
Elle Driver tucked her cell phone into her front coat pocket after having checked the message O-Ren had left her one more time. The Reservoir Syndicate. Yeah, this looked like the place. She entered the bar briskly, taking a quick look around while not paying much attention to anything but O-Ren, to whom she said, “Well, well, well, would you look who it is? Sorry I missed your call, I had a little something else to tend to. You know how it is.” She laughed somewhat mockingly. “Interesting little hole in the wall you’ve found here. Can’t say it does anything for me, though.”
O-Ren was not the sort of person to display her emotions but, when the familiar golden-haired figure with one eye stepped into the establishment, she grinned with some degree of happiness.
“Elle, what a pleasure to see you here,” she remarked. “I was hoping that you might come join me. Yes, I know, the House of Blue Leaves this place is not - but it has a certain dirty charm that grows on you…like a fungus of some variety, but a charming fungus at that.”
“You can say that again,” Elle responded. “As for this place being a fungus, well, it’s a fungus of huge proportions. Get a maid, will you?”
White frowned a bit. He didn’t take kindly to chicks referring to his bar as dirty or anything along the lines of a fungus.
Blonde pivoted, quarter-turning, and looked at Elle from the corner of his eyes as he drank and fooled around with the juke box. “A maid, huh?” he commented. “That sounds like a great idea. Thanks for volunteering, you can start tomorrow.”
Elle folded her arms. “Excuse me? You smart-assed bastard…”
O-Ren smoothly stepped in and said, “Gentlemen, I introduce to you Ms. Elle Driver.”
White was already taking a dislike to Elle but he was a civil man, if nothing else. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Driver,” he said as they shook hands. “I’m Mr. White.” Huh, she’s got quite the grip there for a lady. “O-Ren, I take it she’s an old friend of yours?”
O-Ren gave an elusive smirk and responded, “Elle and I have something of a long history.” She and Elle exchanged amused glances. “We’re dear old friends. We…went to high school together…”
“High school, yeah,” Elle mused, barely concealing her glee at the euphemism. “That was ages ago but it all seems like just yesterday. I was the resident bitch, queen bee, you know? I caused many a problem for everyone and had a grand old time doing it. Those were the days.”
Blonde laughed quietly to himself, not bothering to introduce himself to the new broad. He’d had enough of the “hello and how do you do you do?” bullshit for one day. If she wanted to know who he was then too bad, she was just going to have to ask for him to be introduced. Resident bitch, indeed. A few other titles for her came to mind and they were all exceedingly more colorful than that. He turned his back on her and minded the song list.
Orange stepped out from behind the bar tentatively, not exactly sure what to make of O-Ren’s old acquaintance. White didn’t like her, he knew that instinctively. Blonde’s reaction was harder to figure out. Brown? Where the hell was Brown? He’d pulled a vanishing act like ice cream on an August afternoon. Oh well, might as well…
“Hi, I’m Mr. Orange,” he said. Shaking her hand, he could have sworn she was trying to prove her grip was stronger. “Good to meet you. I know the place looks a bit on the messy side right now but we’re still fixing it up for the grand opening. It’ll look a whole lot better once we’ve gotten settled in.”
O-Ren looked at Mr. Orange and inwardly grinned with amusement. Now I understand why White hired me to watch over him; a pup in the presence of wolves.
“Yeah, nice to meet you, too, Mr. Orange,” Elle said sarcastically. She brought out her trusty little notepad and began to take a few notes. “I should hope you fellows have the place cleaned up soon - you know, on your own - because you won’t attract much business otherwise.”
Mr. White narrowed his eyes. Yeah, I definitely don’t like her.
Orange scratched the back of his neck and glanced away. I don’t think she likes me very much.
O-Ren sighed in the slightest. Elle never was what you could refer to as a “people person.” I wonder if she’ll get along with anyone here? “While I have seen cleaner and more organized establishments, I’ve also seen worse.” She paused, sniffing the air. “Although there an odd musty sort of smell around here.”
White shrugged and retorted, half-jokingly, “It adds character.”
O-Ren cracked a faint smile. “Far be it from me to tell you how to operate your business, but a little style goes a long way.”
White’s grin widened a bit. “Shit. You wouldn’t be telling me how to run my own bar, would you?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“But I do think you wouldn’t know elegance if it came up and kicked you square in the back.”
White raised his eyebrows. “Is that a fact?”
O-Ren smiled, showing that she had only been teasing, and he chuckled.
Elle, on the other hand, just stared at White, blinked, and scribbled more notes in her little paper pad. And the Stealer’s Wheel tune of “Stuck in the Middle with You” came in over the speakers for the second time that day.
Orange nodded to himself, watching them all posture and growl like animals jockeying for positions in the pack. He didn’t really feel the need to be a part of any of that. He caught White’s eye and said, “Yeah, I’ll be in the back if anyone needs me. Only the bottom shelf liquors have been stocked.”
“Let me give you a hand with those cases,” White said, moving in Orange’s direction. He couldn’t have been more grateful for the distraction. “If I hear this song one more time I’ll go crazy like Blonde.”
Mr. Blonde, who had nonchalantly danced his way over to the pool table and was beginning to set it up, just laughed and finished his drink.
***
Once in the back store room with Orange, White pulled out his comb and ran it through his hair, muttering angrily, “You know, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you push that woman/man thing too long and it gets to you. It just gets to you in different ways in different spans of time.”
“I take it that they’re getting to you?” Orange inquired, hands in his pockets.
“Just that Elle bitch, O-Ren’s on the level.” White put the comb away. “Shit, who does that skinny cyclops think she is?”
Orange tilted his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “I wonder how Blonde’s going to handle her?”
White laughed. “Now that’s something I’d like to see: a battle between assholes.”
They lit themselves cigarettes and lingered by the half open store room door, where they could still hear everything but not be seen unless someone walked up and directly peered in.
“I don’t feel like going back out there just yet,” Orange commented. “What about you?”
White smirked and held up his cigarette. “I’d rather put this out in my eye.”
***
Meanwhile, Blonde casually sauntered over behind the bar and helped himself to some ice and soda to go with the rum he’d poured into his now empty glass.
O-Ren made a note of Blonde’s arrogance, which would have infuriated her were she not friends with Elle and thus accustomed to such behavior. Also, he was too amusing for her to dislike him too much; quite along the lines of how Budd was too entertaining for her to be mad at him for more than a minute. Besides, she and Blonde had reached an understanding and O-Ren did not quarrel with those she had an understanding with unless they gave her reason to.
Elle, on the other hand, was a different story. The word “understanding” had very little space in her mental dictionary in any definition. She furiously scribbled away in her notepad, every now and then shooting a venomous look at Blonde before turning the page. He hadn’t bothered to say his name, or title, or whatever, but she would get that information from O-Ren later. He was irritating her just by being in the same room. There was just something about him that rubbed her the wrong way. Hatred at first sight, almost. And when Elle got annoyed she liked to piss off others so she wasn’t the only one in a shit mood.
Not glancing up from the paper, she raised her voice a notch so it was loud enough to definitely be heard through doors and quipped, “Those friends of yours sure are taking their sweet time back there. Kind of makes you wonder what they’re doing.”
Elle was, if nothing else, a keen observer, and now waited for White and Orange to emerge from the back store room, aggravated with her for having picked up on their little game without either of them ever telling her.
***
But neither White nor Orange made much movement to leave the back store room.
White’s expression went from irritated to bewildered to amused as he remarked, “Damn, she must have one hell of a hard time finding a date.”
Orange lazily blew a smoke ring, grinning mischievously. “I say we stay back here longer just for that comment.”
“Hell, we could always sneak out through that window in the corner if we really wanted to.”
“Yeah, but why would we want to?” Orange looked around at all the cases surrounding them, containing dozens of different kinds of alcohol. His impish smile grew. “Because you know Blonde is out there slowly decimating our rum supply. What’s stopping us from helping ourselves to a bit of the stock, as well? I mean, what’s good for the good is good for the gander, right? Why should he have all the fun?”
“That’s not exactly the most responsible thing to do.”
“We can be responsible tomorrow. Let’s just get drunk tonight.”
White smiled back and rested a hand on Orange’s shoulder, saying, “I love it when you think like that.
Fuck it, let’s get wasted.”
He then proceeded to break open a bit of Maker’s Mark for himself and some Southern Comfort for Orange. They toasted bottles and got to drinking.
***
O-Ren turned her head and furrowed her brow mildly, thinking she heard laughter coming from beyond the store room door. Elle’s statement did not have its intended effect and she huffed in disappointment.
Blonde chuckled under his breath, regarding Elle as he removed the billiard balls from their case. “Nice try there, Girly, but no dice.”
Elle stopped writing and stared at him. “What did you just call me?”
He smirked. “Girly.”
She narrowed her eye and closed her notepad, slowly walking up to him. “I don’t take kindly to stupid pet names, buddy.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you take kindly to, Girly.” He tossed the 8-ball from palm to palm, grinning smoothly, and put his foot up on the edge of the pool table.
“Care to say that again, asshole? How about I shove that eight ball up your ass?”
“I’d like to see you try.” He rested his elbow on his knee and moved the word around his mouth as though he were relishing the taste. “Girly.”
“Fuck you.” And with that, Elle grabbed the bottle of rum that had been sitting on the lip of the pool table and threw it to the floor. Glass and whatever was left of the rum shattered and splashed in all directions.
O-Ren stealthily moved to the side. She was loyal and backed up her friends in a fight, yes - but only in those skirmishes that she saw as being worthy. This was not a worthy fight. This was another brawl that Elle had gotten herself into. O-Ren would remain uninvolved. The fray was not hers. Elle was on her own.
Blonde’s pale blue eyes turned into two points of ice. He laughed again but the sound was unnerving, low and unhinged. “Bad idea, Girly. Don’t touch the fucking rum.”
He pulled the straight razor he always kept in his cowboy boot and flicked it open with surprising speed. Elle reached into her own coat for a weapon but Blonde’s hand whipped out and caught her around the neck. The struggle halted with the same abruptness that it had started with when he pressed the razor’s edge up against her jugular.
“Now, the way I see it, you have two options. The first one is you go and get me another bottle of rum before cleaning up this Goddamned mess that you went and made on my otherwise neat floor. The second one is that I use this razor to slit your throat wide open and ruin that pretty white outfit of yours with a few quarts of your own blood.”
If looks could kill Blonde might have been dead from the nasty glare Elle was giving him, but he had gotten the drop on her and was stronger than she had anticipated. She growled in the pit of her throat, feeling the sharp bite of the blade as he pushed it against her skin for emphasis.
“So what’s it going to be?” he asked.
They stared each other down for a while before Elle blinked.
“Fuck you,” she muttered, and then added nearly inaudibly, “I’ll get your fucking rum.”
Blonde grinned and released his grip on her neck, and stepped back with his arms out in a shrugging sort of gesture. Elle curled her lip at him and rubbed the spot on her neck where the straight razor’s blade had left a single bead of blood standing on her skin. He folded his arms, weapon still in hand.
“I think you made the right decision,” Blonde said. “I’m in the mood to mix it up a bit so get me some of that Appleton Jamaican rum.”
O-Ren covered her mouth with her hand to conceal the smile that she couldn’t repress. Yes, it was wrong to kick a person when they’re down, but there was just something so entertaining about watching Elle grumble and trudge behind the bar to fetch Blonde’s bottle of rum.
“Shut up, Ren,” Elle said, narrowing her eye at her friend and former DiVA teammate. “Not a word out of you, not one word.”
Blonde smirked like the Devil was at his shoulder whispering dirty jokes. “Hey, tell you what: while you’re back there, just make me my drink. So splash some of that nice Appleton in a glass with some Coke and bring it back here. But not too much ice, I don’t like my drinks watered down.”
Elle looked like she was about to hurl another bottle at the bastard but changed her mind. She’d get him back in her own special way soon enough, some dark and devious way that sucker-punched him when he least expected it and really made him understand just who he was dealing with. So Elle sneered and made Blonde his Appleton and Coke.
Just you wait, you arrogant motherfucker, I’ll get you for this.
Unable to help herself, O-Ren glided up to the bar and inquired of Elle, teasing with that grin that she hadn’t been able to control, “Oh bartender, could you tell me what brands of sake you have?”
Elle just stared at O-Ren. “I hate you.”
To be continued...
And in case you weren't paying attention the first time it came around, here's a link to the intro: Part One: Welcome to the Syndicate...