Whores, pimps, drug dealers, junkies. He wondered how the tourists walking along the streets looking for a good time could turn a blind eye to the gutters teeming with the refuse of life's more shitty tendencies. He always felt a little pang of guilt seeing the other addicts who weren't afforded the good graces of powerful people and good brothers. Survivor's guilt, they called it, when you couldn't sleep and couldn't stand the thing looking back at you in the mirror knowing there was a trail of bodies sprinkled behind you. But that was the world- shitty.

“You fuckin' okay?” He heard a voice and looked at Ramirez, his .38 in his hand and one hand close to the knob of the door they were standing next to now.

He took a breath, his thumb reaching up to cock back the hammer of his pistol. He nodded. Ramirez knocked on the door, his hand still close to the knob, “Time's up, friendo! You only gave us a hundred caps and it's well past forty-five minutes.”

No answer. Redding knew what would happen next. This wasn't his first time doing this, he waited for Ramirez to jiggle the handle and find that it was locked. Then he watched as Ramirez stepped away from the door and Redding cocked back his leg, smashed his boot into the door. The frame gave some, but still held true. The neighbor didn't much like it and opened his door, but Ramirez didn't much like that himself. The squinty-eyed junkie saw the snub-nose close enough to his mouth to kiss it. The two shared a moment, reaching an understanding, and the junkie slowly closed his door.

Redding kicked the door again, smashing it in that much more before his third kick sent the door smacking against the wall on the inside. What greeted them wasn't all too unfamiliar to Redding. “Fuck.” Francine, Redding's whore, lay on the bed with a chin crusty with spittle.

The man who'd payed to fuck her was still nodding off in the corner, naked. Redding tightened his grip on his pistol, imagining the grip to be the tourist's neck. He walked up to the man, sitting in his wooden chair, half-conscious. The Tourist smiled, his eyelids fluttering and his eyes only barely focusing on him. “Thanks for the fun time, man.” He slurred and chuckled.

That put a sour taste in Redding's mouth and he was sick of this man. He looked back at Francine, she was one of the only whores in New Reno that wasn't a sore-covered junkie. She was the reason why Redding was one of the most successful independent pimps in the city. Now she was dead, nothing but meat and there went Redding's money. “You killed her?” Redding asked.

“I did? I only gave her what she needed...” The man licked his lips and looked at Francine on the bed and now he noticed what Redding did. She wasn't breathing. “Oh, fuck.”

“Oh, fuck is right.” Redding smacked the man upside the head with his pistol and he fell to the ground.

“Oh, shit, man. Wait,” The man was saying, a dark wound on his forehead yawning open and drooling blood. Redding swallowed, his lip curling, the way the man was laying there was disgusting, the way he was pleading was putrid. This piece of shit fucked with his money and there weren't many people alive or would be for long that did that. “I didn't- I didn't mean to, I got money, a lot. I can pay, man, shit!”

Redding lined up his sights and squeezed off two rounds in the man's lower chest. The Tourist slumped back, one of holes in him bubbling with each breath. His fingernails still scraped on the floorboards just a bit until he took a breath that sounded like a tub draining and sent a spray of blood from his mouth to his bare chest and died. Redding stood there and watched. This man fucked with his money. That was all. Just his money, only his money, and now it was done. That was the life he chose and friends came and went. No reason dwelling on it. “Jesus, Red, you sure you're okay?” Ramirez said, “Drugs fuckin' with your brain, man. Gotta get off that shit, how're you gonna sell the shit to junkies and be one yourself?”

“I seem to be making it work so far.” Redding tucked his pistol in near his waist and walked out of the room, Ramirez following after him. The two walked out of the apartments and down the street to their own. He reached out to the knob but before he could slip the key into the hole, the doorknob turned and opened, revealing the mess that was his room in the hotel-turned-apartment building.

It wasn't a mess when he left it. He brought out his pistol and pushed the door open, stepping inside as softly as he could. He couldn't hear anyone rooting around anywhere, so they had to have already gone. The drugs, he thought. He went straight to the suitcase filled with jet and prescription meds, finding it empty. A note was inside. He picked up the piece of paper between finger and thumb, unfolding it and finding only an infuriating, vague message- This is mine now, find me when you want it back. Redding snarled, crumpling up the piece of paper and throwing it over his shoulder, grasping up the bottle of whiskey near the mattress on the floor that was his bed.

He unscrewed the cap but before he put the bottle to his mouth, he stopped himself, only growing more angry. “They fucking pissed in my whiskey.”

“No...” Ramirez's mouth hung open, his eyes narrowed.

“Took my drugs, pissed in my drink, killed my fr-” His eyes flitted to Ramirez for half a second, “Killed my finest whore. She was worth a-fucking-lot, goddamnit.” He closed his eyes, his head hanging, “Fuck!”

He sent the bottle skidding across the floor, dumping pissy whiskey in the corner. Ramirez sat on his own mattress, at least standing the bottle up and laying a stray towel that was on the floor over the puddle of piss-whiskey. “The fuck're we gonna do.”

“We're going hunting.” Redding stuffed his pistol in his holster, tucked away in his waistband, and an extra magazine next to it.

“For who?” Ramirez asked, though he was loading up the weapons with no complaint.

“We'll ask around, I guess. They're bound to make it clear who did it, they don't send a message for no reason.” Redding stood, slipping on his jacket, “Never fuck with a man's money, or his drugs.”

* * *

The Cracked Glass, a small dive bar near Redding's apartment building. The bartender knew Redding, and he would hook him up with jobs for nameless clients, that way Redding didn't have to meet with anyone he didn't know and they didn't have to meet him. He slid five caps forward and Ryan, the tender, stepped up. “What'll it be?”

“Information, Ryan. Anyone been through here with far too many drugs for one night? New faces in town?” Redding asked. "I don't remember pissing off the Lazzaris or the Torres'. I'm pretty under the radar, last time I checked."

“Big bank likes taking little banks, Red. Wasn't long ago, you beat the shit out of Ramirez's gang and took their shit. But, yeah, actually. Group of 'em blew in today. Couple of 'em have been digging pretty deep into the town's shady parts. Ain't no tourists, people been saying, business trip, know what I mean?”

“Mm.” Redding nodded, “What do they look like, these guys.”

“One of 'em's a fuckin' zombie. The other's a tall fucker in a suit, talk about a high profile. Either one of 'em could be an interesting conversation.” Ryan coughed into a fist, “Anything to drink?”

“Whiskey.” Redding licked his lips, one drink before he'd go and handle business. Either find that fucker in a suit or have some words with the ghoul. “You know where these guys were last, at least?”

“Snooping around some of the Lazzari's places. Zombie left the Desperado some time ago, last I heard, Suit-n-Tie was at the Shark Club. And there,” He poured the whiskey in the glass, two fingers, no chill or ice, “On the house.”

Redding slammed the whiskey with no sense of ceremony, two big gulps, only slightly grimacing. A good shiver went down his spine and he shook his head, growling. He pushed the door open and stepped back outside, making a fist to pop his knuckles and sniffed, scanning the street. He made his way towards the Desperado, sure steps leading him there. Mancini would know about most of the people who entered the bar, or at least the bartender would. Once he got inside, there was no sign of the big-named Mancini that he could see, at least not now, but the bartender was still there. He stepped up, taking a seat on a stool and waited for the bartender to take notice of him, letting him serve some other patrons.