Owner	Pose
Natasha Cranston	One thing the Noir novels tend to get right is that a PI's life tends to involve a lot of time vaguely wondering if you're going to be able to make rent this month. It means you can't always be as choosy as to who you work for as you might like - and sneaking pictures of a husband's affair on behalf of their wife isn't nearly as glamourous or exciting as some people seem to insist, even if the payment does cover the month's rent.     So when someone asks for an appointment outside of regular office hours to discuss something "of the utmost discretion" there may be a few red flags, but the advance they're offering is... Persuasive. Her office, seven PM; a consultancy fee just for the meeting and discretion.
Greer Grant	Tigra, who finds herself feeling increasingly out of step with human society and more inclined to give it all up as a bad job to go live in the woods and eat deer or something, is not super attached to her apartment or her office or paying the rent for either. Still, 'more inclined' doesn't mean she's all the way there yet, or even halfway to it. It just means that despite being warned of wanting discretion, Tigra doesn't bother changing back to human form. Call it honesty in advertising: when you go to Tigra's office, let no one think you aren't getting Tony the Tiger in a string bikini.
Natasha Cranston	To his credit, the man does make an effort not to gawk and to keep his eyes on her face rather than elsewhere. To his discredit, he's almost entirely unsuccessful - and on the plus side, it appears to have thrown him off his game enough to mess up what was clearly a prepared speech.     ".. Ah, miss Grant, thank you for, ah, seeing me on such.. Such short notice, yes. I've found myself with a somewhat delicate situation and... Er, pardon my repeating myself, but discretion ''really'' will be of the utmost importance, I'm sure you understand..." Another glance, this one slightly more pointed, as if to emphasize that he's having a hard time believing Tigra wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb nearly anywhere, even if it does linger a bit longer than would be considered polite, but then he rallies himself. "At any rate, the problem is that--"     And off he goes. It's an almost tiresomely familiar spiel; entirely too many would-be clients somehow feel vaguely uncomfortable with asking someone to spy on people, and the way this tends to express is by sharing - and oversharing - explanations on how they really don't want to but see no other option, or similar justifications. What it seems to boil down to is that the CEO of the company he works for is making - in his opinion - dangerously unsound business decisions, and he suspects there's more going on, but without proof he won't be able to do anything about it before she leads the company into ruin and illiquidity, so he's hoping Tigra will be able to suss something out.
Greer Grant	The boy's inability to keep his eyes off her seems perfectly in line with he's hiring Tigra to do: 'unsound business decisions' is an investigation for an accountant, not a PI. This yutz is obviously not after evidence. He's after blackmail material or just straight up voyeurism, and it's kind of insulting he thinks he can lie to her about that. On the other hand, there's no question of not taking the job. The only question is of how to get him to pay her for returning the insult. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't think something specific was going on. What do you suspect is the problem?" she asks, keeping her thoughts--and her burgeoning plans--to herself.
Natasha Cranston	"... That's the difficult part," he admits. "She regularly just blows off meetings with some excuse or another, leaves work at three because she wants to 'skip ahead of the line' at one club or another, doesn't show up until past noon the next day, with only the vaguest explanation on where she'd gone, and nobody has the clout to ''make'' her answer questions she doesn't feel like answering, never mind that a six million dollar deal you spent ''weeks'' negotiating just fell through..." From the way he's angrily gesticulating, this particular part probably did happen.     Eventually he finishes venting. "... I'm sorry, that was unprofessional. But that does illustrate the problem; sooner or later her habits are going to damage the bottom line in a way that ''isn't'' recoverable and we need ''something'' to help rein her in if we have to..."
Greer Grant	Tigra thinks about that a moment. Blackmail, then, because voting her out isn't an option? Which means she's majority shareholder, or owns the company outright, or not enough people agree with the pocketminer's assessment to vote her out. Interesting. It's a place to start from. "Alright. Is there any info you have that you think *I* should have?"
Natasha Cranston	"She has a personal driver; she claims she doesn't trust herself behind the wheel after a few drinks." He's... ''probably'' not ''consciously'' aware of the disappointment on his face as he puts down a photo of a man in his early fifties. Fairly bad angle, clearly some distance by someone with very little experience in sleuthing, probably from a mobile phone. "She pays him out of her own pocket so I can't tell you how much he makes, but he apparently works as a cab driver when he's not on call so it can't be too much."     Another photo, this time a bit better, of a woman in her early thirties walking down the street, and another with a zoom in of her face -- straight dark hair, green-blue eyes, just a few hints of extensive makeup work. Expensive looking earrings. "And this is your subject. Natasha Cranston. As I said, she keeps a spectacularly erratic schedule so I can't predict when she's going on her next club crawl, but I should be able to alert you discreetly the next time she decides to take an early day..."
Greer Grant	Tigra shakes her head decisively. "No. You'll be acting suspicious enough around her without adding on the nervousness you get from being my informant. The best thing you can do now is stay out of the way and act normal while I work on it. Here's the agreement for you to sign in the usual places," she says, pushing a two-page, stapled document across her desk at him. "Short version is, you agree to pay my fee and my business expenses, and to live with it if I can't turn up what you want. In exchange, you can cancel the job at any time, and don't get held liable for any actions I should have known better than to take."
Natasha Cranston	It's almost amusing to watch her client's apparent natural affinity for contracts and familiarity with fine print collide with a visible aversion to write his name down on anything that might come back to haunt him later, but at least he knows better than to haggle over the advance fee. Cash, unmarked and -- as a quick check bears out -- non-sequential bills. It would seep that someone has watched entirely too many movies. Still, money is money, and this'll pay her rent for the next few months, easy...