[color=9e0039][b]Freeside - Santelli’s Deli, Abraham “Honest Abe” Rockford - Sniffing out a Con[/b][/color]

Rockford took a long drag on his cigarette as he walked down the broken sidewalk of some nameless filth-covered street in Freeside. He kept his free hand stuffed in his pocket fingering the handle of a loaded snub nose .44, a necessary precaution venturing anywhere in the ghetto. Even an Omerta enforcer had to keep his wits about him, because while the Omertas had plenty of friends in Freeside, that was no guarantee that some foolhardy idiot wasn’t going to try his luck anyway. 

Generally if you kept to the Boulevard and the area of Fremont Street itself, then you were relatively safe. Plenty of mercenaries and Omerta-hired goons patrolled those two streets escorting tourists to and from the strip. Once you started venturing off from that well-trodden path though? Well that’s where things got interesting.

As he continued down the street, Rockford stepped over the body of some poor schmuck lying face down in a puddle of his own making. Seemed obvious that the guy had OD’d at some point recently, given the empty syringes littering the ground around him. Rockford stooped down and observed the detritus, giving a rueful smile as he realized it was all Omerta-made. That wasn’t surprising though, most if not all the chems flowing into Freeside and Outer Vegas were somehow connected to his family. He felt a twinge of guilt at seeing how young the guy looked, but swiftly pushed it aside. Someone in his position couldn’t afford to feel sympathy for these addicts, otherwise he’d be spilling his heart out all over Vegas. 

As he walked away, he looked behind him and saw some opportunistic guttersnipe run over to the corpse and start rummaging through the dead man’s pockets, then the kid kicked the body and ran off having apparently found nothing of value. 

Just another day in Freeside, Rockford thought bitterly. 

He tossed his spent cigarette to the side just as he arrived at his destination. It was a small red-bricked building that was squashed between two dilapidated apartment buildings. A large red and white sign above it read “[i]Satriale's Pork Store[/i]” but that had been crossed out several times by crude streaks of black paint and underneath it, in bright bold red letters, was spelled out the place's new name “[i][b]Santelli’s Deli[/b][/i]”. Outside of the place, a few rough-looking men and women in tattered leather jackets and t-shirts wielding baseball bats were loitering around. They all sported tattoos and a wide variety of garish hairstyles that would not be out of place among raiders. As Rockford approached, one particular thug who looked like the leader of this misfit gang gave him a friendly nod, then opened the door for him. 

[i]Wanna-be gangsters,[/i] Rockford thought as he stepped inside, [i]Probably somewhere on the Omerta payroll[/i]. 

“Oh, hey Abe,” A rough voice greeted him as Rockford entered the worn-out interior of the deli. A ghoul in a blood-stained appron stepped around the counter, “Guess you got my message?”

“I did,” Abe nodded as he pulled out his red notepad, “So..what’d you got for me Tony?”

“Well I might have overhead somethin’ a couple nights ago,” The old ghoul said as he scratched at his necrotic chin, “Had a guy in here - well dressed. I figured he was a tourist at first, which was odd because tourists don’t come out this way - I only ever get locals. Anyways…I strike up a conversation with him and ask if he’s new around here: he says that used to live in Westside. I asked him, well then what do you do because you’ve got some fine fancy digs. Then I asked, ‘You workin’ for a casino?’”

“What did he say to that?” 

“Eh he kinda chuckled weirdly at that then said, kinda, and that he’s got gig that he runs up on the strip. I asked him what kind of gig: he says ‘the kind that makes me a butt-load of money without having to lift a finger.’ I says to him, well that sounds like a good deal for you then. And he says ‘yeah it is, but not for the suckers.’”

“Suckers?” Rockford asked, eyebrow raised. 

“I figured he meant tourists,” Tony replied with a shrug, “You know, gamblers and what-not. So anyway, he pays for his meat and leaves and I don’t think much of it, until I heard your little APB this morning..Got to thinking maybe it was connected.”

“Certainly sounds like it could be,” Rockford nodded thoughtfully as he jotted down a few notes, “Get a good look at him?”

“Yeah I did, scrawny little fuck with blue eyes. Maybe 25 years old, with a scar on his left hand.”

“Was there anyone with him?”

Tony shook his head, “Nah just his lonesome.”

“Alright well that’s something to go off,” Rockford said, giving the ghoulish butcher an appreciative nod, “Thanks Tony, I’ll check into it. Give my best to the Mrs. eh?”

“I’ll do that thank yeh,” Tony said with a grin, “And please, tell Mr. Dominic that business has been good lately. Gotten plenty of customers for that new party chem your Family is cookin’ up. Could use another shipment soon actually.”

“I’ll make sure one gets sent,” Rockford said, tipping his hat, “See ya around Tony.”

Rockford stepped back out of the Deli while reaching for another cigarette as he considered what to do with the information Tony had given him. It wasn’t much, and it was entirely possible it was completely unrelated, but he’d heard nothing else from any of his contacts so far. So it was truly his best lead, or rather, it was his [i]only[/i] lead.

“Going somewhere Mister?” One of the female gangsters asked with a cock of her tattoo’d head, almost as soon as he stepped out the door, “You with The Family right?”

“Maybe, what's it to you?” Rockford replied. He reached for his lighter and lit up on his cigarette. He puffed steadily on it and narrowed his eyes at the unlikely quartet. All their eyes seemed to light up, and they eager looked to one another with excited expressions, 

“Oh man I knew it,” One of the males said with a goofy grin. 

“Hey’d we’d be…uh…honored to escort you around Freeside,” the female wanna-be continued, “And anything else we can do for you….just let us know.”

“I don’t need an escort,” Rockford replied, blowing smoke in their direction. Their expressions sunk for a brief moment as they no doubt thought perhaps they’d lost out on a chance to impress their criminal overlords, but then Rockford gave a grin, “But I might have some other uses for you. Interested in a little undercover work?”

The gangsters' smiles returned.

“Anything for the Omertas.”


[b][color=9e0039]Zoara Club VIP Lounge, Don Dominic - The Benny Situation[/color][/b]

Dominic listened with a bored expression as Benny rattled off a long list of planned bureaucratic changes to the Mojave. He wanted to give Benny the immediate impression that nothing of what he said interested him, or that he simply had no interest in the politics of it all or the machinations of a national scale that far outclassed his own simple criminal ambitions. 

The reality was nothing could be farther from the truth. He hung on Benny’s every word as the neurotic ambassador rambled off the so-called 'vision' for the future. Some parts of which were undoubtedly half-truths or even outright lies, but even under that consideration the plans Benny laid out infuriated him to no end. He’d expected Benny to lie, to give some indication of how the Strip and the Mojave wouldn’t *really* change, but the Ambassador had not seemed to bother with that. Or rather, the lie he told wasn’t even attempting to placate or assuage doubts about the continued autonomy of Vegas. If this was what Benny was attempting to spin to him, what was the NCR’s actual plan? 

[i]None of that will come to pass[/i], Dominic wanted to growl out. He wanted to punch Benny’s face in and have his men haul him off to a fate worse than death. The Legion used to crucify their victims, leave them up on that cross of wood for days on end before they expired, that seemed a fitting punishment for the little weasel sitting before him. With a snap of his finger it could happen, Benny could disappear, and some excuse could be cooked up to the NCR brass about how their new Ambassador ran into an unfortunate bit of ‘trouble’ after he’d wandered into Freeside unadvisedly. Excuses would be made, apologies would be offered, palms would be greased, and retribution would be forgotten. 

Yet, much to his chagrin, he couldn’t, not yet anyway: not now. 

So instead he had to play along. 

His ears perked up at the mention of CSF security taking over control of key NCR installations in lieu of Colonel Abernathy’s own men.  It was a strange bit of information to add, and it immediately got him intrigued. Had Abernathy finally lost the support of the NCR brass back home? Or was something else afoot here?

“I hate to be trouble Mr. Dominic but do you have anything I could smoke?” Benny asked as he patted down his suit in search of a pack of cigarettes. 

Dominic smiled and reached into his jacket pocket. He withdrew a long black slender object that looked not unlike the handle of a blade, then offered it up to Benny in one smooth motion which, had it been a knife, could have torn into the Ambassador’s chest. Instead, Dominic pressed a button on the case and a cigarette popped out like a switch. He offered it up to the Ambassador, then took one for himself.

He then stuffed the case back into his jacket and withdrew a gold-plated lighter and flipped it open. He lit Benny’s cigarette before igniting his own. Smoke wafted around them as the two sat in silence for a few brief moments while they both enjoyed the flavor of the pristine pre-war tobacco. 

Finally, Dominic broke the silence, giving a slight shrug as he stared at Benny,

“[i]Omerta[/i],” He explained, “Means [i]silence[/i]. You have my word, the Colonel won’t hear about it from me. Though I am curious why you’d trust me at all, I’m frankly flattered that you’d think little ol’ me important enough to hear details of what is obviously going to be a very sensitive operation before they even happen,” Dominic drew on his cigarette and exhaled the smoke calmly through the right side of his mouth, “But honestly, why should there would be any cause for concern at all? Colonel Abernathy is a loyal NCR man is he not? A patriot? Surely you aren’t suggesting he’d be capable of some sort of rebellion?”