Agent Provocateur

This is a rought draft of my first chapter of a short story I'm not sure is exactly going to be a short story yet or not. I'm trying to work on character development, descriptive writing, and dialogue. Hope some of you can give me insight.

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Chapter I

The Theory

“You think we should come together?” the thirty and something brown haired man said. “Do something grass roots?” His hand wrapped around the bottle of beer as he hunched over the outdoor café’s metal table.
“It depends on how much you care” the dark haired man said. “The changes of one individual can make a world of difference” he said tritely. “That is, if it’s still a free world” he said again more solemnly.
The two were lawyers at separate law firms. One practiced civil, the other criminal, law. The senior man in his 40’s and with black glasses just got off work, his light blue shirt swathed in a darker blue blazer and still on but now unbuttoned at the neck. The junior man with the brown hair wore a grey jersey and sweats. They sat outside a downtown café’ of Sarasota, Florida, drinking foreign beer.
“This is the story” the senior said. “They’re here, they’re real, and they’re feared” he grimaced. “It’s a phenomenon, an epidemic, or a social problem. But there’s always a wild card”.
“Bruno?”
“Bruno, and he’s more than grass roots. He’s an agent provocateur.”
The feared stared at the two lawyers like stray dogs salivating for food. They languished along the café’s awnings and nooks and crannies of the storefronts, panhandling. They were the city’s homeless. The tropical sunset of Southwest Florida painted them black and the town patriotically red and blue as it did the politics and setting here in downtown Sarasota. Posh restaurants absorbed the bleeding colors of the homeless as they were covered with the glistening glare of tourists and the affluent and a giant 15’ X 25’ American flag flying over Tamiami Trail from a Ford dealership and waving to the dinks as they ensconced themselves here comfortably.
A Chris Farly plump face stood out among them, too, and like a red tomato smeared on the flag. His accoutrement was a gold chain and white, tank top T-shirt. A broad, bear shaped body with red hair traveling fur-like from his head to his back and down his arms exuded a glazed sheen of sweat. He stampeded down the sidewalks with his hockey bag-sized grey duffle bag and bowled aside the passersby on his way to the council, or meeting at the café.
“Here he comes” the senior said as the bowling body steam-rolled into the café’ and bumped aside the metal chairs that shrieked away like bats.
“Hey, I’m here at your summons”, he said indifferently and dragged a metal chair towards them that scraped like nails down a chalk board. “What calls me here among the beautiful people?”
The two lawyers stared at him and then downed their cups of German beer. A few seconds lapsed, a little nose brushing and head rubbing and then throat clearing as Senior said “We care, that’s what called”.
It was the beginning. Bruno was the Agent. It was short for Agent Provocateur. That’s what the lawyers saw in him though Agent didn’t realize it meant more. It meant he was an undercover ombudsman.
“An Ambushman? What the hell is that?”
“An OM-BUDS-MAN” senior emphasized. “We’ll tell you later. We’re making you wear a bug”.
“For what? And why?”
“We’re watching, that’s why” and Senior motioned to his partner to show Bruno the pictures.
The pictures were of a startling slender, sparkling black haired Asian female wearing a blacker dress. Her name was Shika (Sally) Suzuki. This was his contact, an insider, or informer and their real ombudsman. Next to her shone another painted prostitute street gamine representing the same features. This was her undercover disguise.
Senior and Junior then laid it out. There were photos of people and politicians and police and more street people and then one of him: it was his last mug shot and arrest. The courts wanted to give him five years, they said. His community service and compliance by the court judge were the only option.
“And how am I supposed to find them? Bring a camera, ask the cops?”
“It’s not you finding them, Bruno” Senior said smugly. “It’s them finding you”. Then they fronted him some money to stay at the nearby Salvation Army and getting up to leave, gave him his first assignment: the city’s public meeting at city hall 9a. tomorrow.
Watching them leave, Agent knew he had no choice though the lawyers had stretched the truth. He was only looking at a year, not five. Yet he was white trash and had been arrested over 319 times. But the laws in Florida were notorious. The lawyers new this. His crimes were all victimless crimes minus the one that made him the victim: homelessness. This brought him to their attention.
Going grass roots meant playing a game. Agent found himself a pawn in a world with borders. The game was to cross these borders and balance the odds in order to pit the homeless against a theory they erstwhile couldn’t beat legally: discrimination. Senior and Junior bet on Bruno as the odds all faced yet the one most in their favor. They wanted him to cross the line they knew he would cross and they couldn’t. The line was called the theory of games and was drawn in downtown, Sarasota, Florida.
The game was exemplified by the occasional city’s public meetings at the city hall where the city manager and administrators battled city issues and where Agent toted his hockey-size duffle bag and found himself the next day. One issue was the homeless presence in Sarasota, Florida and the delineation of the term ‘homeless’ as a lumping of all unfortunates into one category, including those infirm and elderly and constituting one definition altogether: the criminal class.
“What, are we gonna let ‘em sleep in our beds for God’s sake!” the city manager Tom Erwin yelled to the public after a citizen complained about lack of housing for the homeless. “They’re even camping out in the cemetery, for crying out loud!”
“No, we should let them assimilate and not be treated as criminals” a shiny haired Asian female interjected.
‘Assimilate my behind!” Erwin bellowed. “And piss all over the sidewalks!”
“Tom, we’re being investigated and even watched by outside human rights groups, maybe even the FBI” Susan Atwell lamented calmly. “The incident at the bus terminal paints us in a pretty negative light” she said plaintively.
The incident was a recent scuffle between a belligerently drunken homeless man who refused to leave the bus terminal and was therefore physically removed by a bald-headed, gorilla-sized cop who swung him head first against the terminal’s jagged, concrete wall thereby tearing open a good portion of his forehead. Paramedics had to be called and the homeless man taken to the hospital. Nonetheless, the officer was acquitted and the city manager only scoffed saying “That homeless man crossed the line!” Peering into the group of people at the meeting, Bruno felt a twinge of pain in his gut at the comment.
His image wasn’t public, but an outsider. Erwin’s comment made this clear. There was a social gulf and the line wasn’t just literal. Listening to him felt like the public really had no choice for vox populi to have any effect just like the homeless and Bruno had little chance in crossing the social gulf. Searching for matches to the pictures Senior and Junior showed him, he flinched at the faces around him. That’s when her face struck him like an angel’s wing.
Sitting in the meeting, her presence with her black blazer and light yellow blouse encapsulated her face like a lily in a vase. Long black hair with a sparkling sheen reflected a Rembrandt still life. Her angelic face stunned him, as did her telegenic transparency. The sharp nose and crinkled eyes concentrated secretarially as Sally brushed her blacker hair aside and glanced at her notes. The fact she was so svelte and shapely didn’t shock Agent as much as make him wonder why she cared and wasn’t part of the beautiful people herself. He eased alongside her and took a seat.
He stared blankly at the speakers not knowing what the meeting was about. Terms such as business plans and mooring field and parallel parking evaded him. Bruno worried about the bug Senior and Junior gave him and the bulge in his sweaty tank top. His disheveled hair puffed out in tufts making him feel as if there was something sacrileges about his presence compared to hers. Nonetheless, as the meeting came to an end he drew alongside her as her face flashed him a knowing smile.
The two walked down the marble stairs outside city hall and observed the streaming bodies and faces of the public. The sun struck them with sword-like beams of light through the oak trees. Sally began.
“You’re Bruno, of course” she said pointedly.
“Yeap, fresh from out of state”.
“You have any idea what’s going on here?” she queried.
“Not a clue except Senior and Junior sent me after assigning me their ambushman yesterday” he chuckled.
“Right. You’re here at their behest as an ombudsman, and mine” she said with a clipped, staccato Japanese accent. “I need you to record them” she said softly. “The ones at the meeting” she said. “I’ll meet you tomorrow at the Drunken Poet Café on Mainstreet at 10a” she said pertly and the two parted like rain clouds after a summer storm.