And they killed the fuck out of those punchdrunk bastards.
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El Hombre Pájaro
STATUS: "I'm an actor. I will say anything for money." -- Also Charlton Heston 5 yrs ago
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"I'm an actor. I will say anything for money." -- Also Charlton Heston
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None of your damn business.
Most Recent Posts
Selmer, Tennessee
8:24 PM
“The events of the last month are just the latest in a long line of events that are all too familiar to us.”
Isaiah Wolde, the man more and more people simply called the Ethiopian, stood in the pulpit of the local AME church. A sea of black, sweating faces looked out at him as he spoke. The church was filled to capacity and then some. The vestibule door opened up and countless more people listened from outside. The mass of people crowded together in this little church on this hot summer night turned the interior temperature from hot to nigh unbearable. But for all of that, Wolde did not seem phased by the heat save for a few drops of sweat near his hairline.
Wolde’s speaking tour through Tennessee and North Carolina. The demonstrations and protests in Mississippi had been violent and bloody, but they’d gotten the attention of the country. White journalist covered the marches with aplomb, filling papers and radio programs and the evening news with updates on the brutal violence going on down in the heart of Dixie.
Just thinking about that made James Calhoun’s jaw hurt. He touched it on reflex. The wire was gone, but the memory was fresh. A white cop in his own hometown broke it when the man laid hands on his daughter. When it came to Sarah, James did not care about repercussions if someone touched her in a harmful way. That act of violence put him in Wolde’s circle of trusted advisors… but it also put him on some bad people’s radars.
“My adopted homeland of Ethiopia is the latest target of imperialist aggression,” Wolde said to a chorus of nods and amens from the crowd. “It’s a story as old as time. White aggressors invade Africa, looking for spoils. Spain says Ethiopia has become a threat because of communism. An ism is behind their fighting, but it is not communism. Racism is their motivating factor, my brothers and sister. The white man cannot stand the fact that a nation of proud, black men and women are among the world’s best. Long ago Africa was a land ruled by black kings and queens, a land of art and beauty before the European bootheel kicked our ancestors into the squalor and wrapped them in chains. An Italian ‘discovered’ America for Spain. The problem was, there were already people living here. The problem was, nobody asked those people if they wanted to be discovered. Like nobody asked our people if they wanted to come to America. The power, money, and culture coming from Africa became a problem for Spain. White Europeans saw a problem and they are solving it the only way they know how: violently.”
Wolde took a break and sipped a glass of water. The crowd broke out into applause. James scanned the assembly and stopped cold at the sight near the back. A white, middle-aged woman with dark red hair stared straight at him. James felt his stomach go cold. He turned away from her and wiped sweat from his face as he looked back at Wolde. Jessica Hyatt, FCB agent shadowing the Wolde camp. She was more than that to James. She held James and Sarah’s fate in her hands. If he pissed her off, they would both go to a Mississippi work farm and spend years on a chain gang. James could handle it, but he doubted Sarah could. She was so young and so hopeful and so beautiful. Hard time would crush her, so he cut a deal. Wolde knew the FCB was following him on the tour and that they were probably tapping his phone lines, but he had no idea a member of his inner circle was an FCB informant.
“Like our brothers and sisters in Africa, we find ourselves in a struggle. Ours is not one of life or death, but it is just as important. While they fight for survival, they fight for equality. While they fight Spain, we fight Jim Crow. While their cities burn, our people are drug into the streets and beaten. Their enemy is a foreign invader. Our enemies are the people sworn to protect our citizens and uphold our laws. Our struggles and their struggles are very different, but very much the same. What the white man fears it hates and oppresses. We are linked by a common oppressive enemy that seeks to destroy what it cannot control. This is why our upcoming march on Nashville will be both a protest for our rights, and a show of support for our brothers and sisters in Ethiopia. Our cause is their cause, their fight is our fight, and we must show the white people of this country that fact.”
Washington DC
11:35 PM
A secret service agent quietly led Secretary of State Lillian Mather into the Oval Office through a side entrance. President Norman was already waiting for her on the couch in front of the desk. The Secretary of State was taken aback by two things she noticed right away. The first was the president’s attire. He wore a pair of khaki slacks and a white button-down short sleeve shirt tucked into his pants. Despite knowing Michael Norman for over twenty years, she had never seen the president in casual clothes. He was either in military dress or a suit and tie. In his new outfit, he looked less like a war hero and commander-in-chief and more like a mid-level office worker.
The second thing that caught her off guard was that they were alone. She knew the president had a select group of people he spoke to alone. Lillian was not among those people. Every meeting with the president so far had involved at least three or four other high-level officials and bureaucrats. She didn’t see White House Chief of Staff Jeff Brewer chainsmoking butts near an open window. Vice President Reed wasn’t skulking in a darkened corner like a southern gothic vampire. For the first time since he asked her to serve as Secretary of State, Lillian was alone with the president.
Norman stood and offered her his hand. “I know it’s late, Lillian. I’m sorry about that.”
She shook his hand and nodded with a smile. “The president calls and you come running, no matter the time of night.”
Norman shrugged a bit sheepishly and pointed her to the couch while he walked towards his desk. He sat down behind the thick wooden desk that Lillian recognized. It floated through the White House over the years, placed in various rooms by the different presidents and their first ladies. It was made from the timbers of a British ship, HMS Resolute. Rutherford B. Hayes was president when Queen Victoria sent the desk to the White House as a gift. Now Norman used it as his own work desk.
“CIA intelligence coming from Africa arrived on my desk this afternoon. Have you heard of Djibouti?”
“It’s somewhere on the Horn of Africa, right?”
“It was,” said Norman. “The briefing I received had conflicting reports, but most agree that it was destroyed by fire. There was a battle sometime yesterday; the Spanish attempted an amphibious assault. Sources aren’t sure about the numbers, and the fighting is still going on, but it seems that the Spanish won a Pyrrhic victory at best.”
The news surprised Lillian. Ever since Suez the talk was that it would be a matter of time until the war was over. The Africans had heart, but heart was no match for gunships and fighter jets.
“It’s their home,” she said. “And a very important city on top of it. They’ll fight tooth and nail to keep it, or see that the Spaniards don’t get it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Africans set the city on fire themselves.”
Norman nodded and stared down as he spoke.
“Probably. Take what they can, burn the rest to keep the Spaniards hands off it, and retreat into desert to equal the playing field. It’s what I’d do.”
“Is that why you called me into a meeting at midnight, sir? To listen to you play armchair general.”
The president looked up and gave Lillian a wry smirk. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin.
“About one hundred and sixty years ago, one of our predecessors who served as Secretary of State and then president said about the United States, ’She goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.’ John Quincy Adams’ words, a supplement to George Washington’s talk of avoiding foreign entanglement, has defined US foreign policy for two hundred years.”
“We almost violated that once,” said Lillian. “1917, with Wilson.”
“That was Wilson’s fault. He said the right things and did the right things, but congress… just would not back him. He couldn’t get the votes or twist the arms, so congress said no… and the Great War went on a lot longer than it should have by all rights.”
“Is this what you wanted to talk about?” Lillian asked. “The possibility of—“
“Don’t say it,” Norman said quickly. “I don’t want to say that word in this office. It is something I’ve thought about more and more the past few days. I see on the television that they’re burning Spanish flags in New York City, people are wearing pins with the colors of the Ethiopian imperial flag. The country by and large is still pissed from Spain sticking their nose into the last war with Canada. On the flip side, I have letters arriving here every day saying we should side with Spain and bomb those dirty commie savages back to the stone age. On top of all that, in two days the House is going to introduce a spending appropriations bill for foreign relief aid to Ethiopia when they come back from summer recess.”
Lillian leaned forward on the couch and looked at the president.
“You hired me to tell you like it is, sir, and I will say this: this show of support is your doing. In a joint session of congress you called out the war as naked imperial aggression. You’re president, but yet you’re surprised that people actually listen to you? If you called me here to tell you the best course, I can only offer one solution: let things play out. You’ve started that you can’t just stop now. Sic Vice President Reed on congress if you want that appropriations bill to fail. If you want it to pass, have it pass and go from there. You and President Fernandez both have been preparing us for conflict if it happens again. Keep it up. We may need it.”
8:24 PM
“The events of the last month are just the latest in a long line of events that are all too familiar to us.”
Isaiah Wolde, the man more and more people simply called the Ethiopian, stood in the pulpit of the local AME church. A sea of black, sweating faces looked out at him as he spoke. The church was filled to capacity and then some. The vestibule door opened up and countless more people listened from outside. The mass of people crowded together in this little church on this hot summer night turned the interior temperature from hot to nigh unbearable. But for all of that, Wolde did not seem phased by the heat save for a few drops of sweat near his hairline.
Wolde’s speaking tour through Tennessee and North Carolina. The demonstrations and protests in Mississippi had been violent and bloody, but they’d gotten the attention of the country. White journalist covered the marches with aplomb, filling papers and radio programs and the evening news with updates on the brutal violence going on down in the heart of Dixie.
Just thinking about that made James Calhoun’s jaw hurt. He touched it on reflex. The wire was gone, but the memory was fresh. A white cop in his own hometown broke it when the man laid hands on his daughter. When it came to Sarah, James did not care about repercussions if someone touched her in a harmful way. That act of violence put him in Wolde’s circle of trusted advisors… but it also put him on some bad people’s radars.
“My adopted homeland of Ethiopia is the latest target of imperialist aggression,” Wolde said to a chorus of nods and amens from the crowd. “It’s a story as old as time. White aggressors invade Africa, looking for spoils. Spain says Ethiopia has become a threat because of communism. An ism is behind their fighting, but it is not communism. Racism is their motivating factor, my brothers and sister. The white man cannot stand the fact that a nation of proud, black men and women are among the world’s best. Long ago Africa was a land ruled by black kings and queens, a land of art and beauty before the European bootheel kicked our ancestors into the squalor and wrapped them in chains. An Italian ‘discovered’ America for Spain. The problem was, there were already people living here. The problem was, nobody asked those people if they wanted to be discovered. Like nobody asked our people if they wanted to come to America. The power, money, and culture coming from Africa became a problem for Spain. White Europeans saw a problem and they are solving it the only way they know how: violently.”
Wolde took a break and sipped a glass of water. The crowd broke out into applause. James scanned the assembly and stopped cold at the sight near the back. A white, middle-aged woman with dark red hair stared straight at him. James felt his stomach go cold. He turned away from her and wiped sweat from his face as he looked back at Wolde. Jessica Hyatt, FCB agent shadowing the Wolde camp. She was more than that to James. She held James and Sarah’s fate in her hands. If he pissed her off, they would both go to a Mississippi work farm and spend years on a chain gang. James could handle it, but he doubted Sarah could. She was so young and so hopeful and so beautiful. Hard time would crush her, so he cut a deal. Wolde knew the FCB was following him on the tour and that they were probably tapping his phone lines, but he had no idea a member of his inner circle was an FCB informant.
“Like our brothers and sisters in Africa, we find ourselves in a struggle. Ours is not one of life or death, but it is just as important. While they fight for survival, they fight for equality. While they fight Spain, we fight Jim Crow. While their cities burn, our people are drug into the streets and beaten. Their enemy is a foreign invader. Our enemies are the people sworn to protect our citizens and uphold our laws. Our struggles and their struggles are very different, but very much the same. What the white man fears it hates and oppresses. We are linked by a common oppressive enemy that seeks to destroy what it cannot control. This is why our upcoming march on Nashville will be both a protest for our rights, and a show of support for our brothers and sisters in Ethiopia. Our cause is their cause, their fight is our fight, and we must show the white people of this country that fact.”
Washington DC
11:35 PM
A secret service agent quietly led Secretary of State Lillian Mather into the Oval Office through a side entrance. President Norman was already waiting for her on the couch in front of the desk. The Secretary of State was taken aback by two things she noticed right away. The first was the president’s attire. He wore a pair of khaki slacks and a white button-down short sleeve shirt tucked into his pants. Despite knowing Michael Norman for over twenty years, she had never seen the president in casual clothes. He was either in military dress or a suit and tie. In his new outfit, he looked less like a war hero and commander-in-chief and more like a mid-level office worker.
The second thing that caught her off guard was that they were alone. She knew the president had a select group of people he spoke to alone. Lillian was not among those people. Every meeting with the president so far had involved at least three or four other high-level officials and bureaucrats. She didn’t see White House Chief of Staff Jeff Brewer chainsmoking butts near an open window. Vice President Reed wasn’t skulking in a darkened corner like a southern gothic vampire. For the first time since he asked her to serve as Secretary of State, Lillian was alone with the president.
Norman stood and offered her his hand. “I know it’s late, Lillian. I’m sorry about that.”
She shook his hand and nodded with a smile. “The president calls and you come running, no matter the time of night.”
Norman shrugged a bit sheepishly and pointed her to the couch while he walked towards his desk. He sat down behind the thick wooden desk that Lillian recognized. It floated through the White House over the years, placed in various rooms by the different presidents and their first ladies. It was made from the timbers of a British ship, HMS Resolute. Rutherford B. Hayes was president when Queen Victoria sent the desk to the White House as a gift. Now Norman used it as his own work desk.
“CIA intelligence coming from Africa arrived on my desk this afternoon. Have you heard of Djibouti?”
“It’s somewhere on the Horn of Africa, right?”
“It was,” said Norman. “The briefing I received had conflicting reports, but most agree that it was destroyed by fire. There was a battle sometime yesterday; the Spanish attempted an amphibious assault. Sources aren’t sure about the numbers, and the fighting is still going on, but it seems that the Spanish won a Pyrrhic victory at best.”
The news surprised Lillian. Ever since Suez the talk was that it would be a matter of time until the war was over. The Africans had heart, but heart was no match for gunships and fighter jets.
“It’s their home,” she said. “And a very important city on top of it. They’ll fight tooth and nail to keep it, or see that the Spaniards don’t get it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Africans set the city on fire themselves.”
Norman nodded and stared down as he spoke.
“Probably. Take what they can, burn the rest to keep the Spaniards hands off it, and retreat into desert to equal the playing field. It’s what I’d do.”
“Is that why you called me into a meeting at midnight, sir? To listen to you play armchair general.”
The president looked up and gave Lillian a wry smirk. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin.
“About one hundred and sixty years ago, one of our predecessors who served as Secretary of State and then president said about the United States, ’She goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.’ John Quincy Adams’ words, a supplement to George Washington’s talk of avoiding foreign entanglement, has defined US foreign policy for two hundred years.”
“We almost violated that once,” said Lillian. “1917, with Wilson.”
“That was Wilson’s fault. He said the right things and did the right things, but congress… just would not back him. He couldn’t get the votes or twist the arms, so congress said no… and the Great War went on a lot longer than it should have by all rights.”
“Is this what you wanted to talk about?” Lillian asked. “The possibility of—“
“Don’t say it,” Norman said quickly. “I don’t want to say that word in this office. It is something I’ve thought about more and more the past few days. I see on the television that they’re burning Spanish flags in New York City, people are wearing pins with the colors of the Ethiopian imperial flag. The country by and large is still pissed from Spain sticking their nose into the last war with Canada. On the flip side, I have letters arriving here every day saying we should side with Spain and bomb those dirty commie savages back to the stone age. On top of all that, in two days the House is going to introduce a spending appropriations bill for foreign relief aid to Ethiopia when they come back from summer recess.”
Lillian leaned forward on the couch and looked at the president.
“You hired me to tell you like it is, sir, and I will say this: this show of support is your doing. In a joint session of congress you called out the war as naked imperial aggression. You’re president, but yet you’re surprised that people actually listen to you? If you called me here to tell you the best course, I can only offer one solution: let things play out. You’ve started that you can’t just stop now. Sic Vice President Reed on congress if you want that appropriations bill to fail. If you want it to pass, have it pass and go from there. You and President Fernandez both have been preparing us for conflict if it happens again. Keep it up. We may need it.”
In
The Semi-Regular-Irregular Roleplayer Guild Hunger Games
→
11 yrs ago
Forum: Roleplaying Discussion
Coming to you from all the way back in 2002 it's....
Name: Dark Master Matt
Occupation: Bounty Hunter
Powers/Abilities: A dual-wand wielding wizard with the psychic ability to see into the future as well as turning into a redtail hawk at will. Also he's a werewolf.
Notable Adventure: Assassinating Osama Bin Laden.
Name: Dark Master Matt
Occupation: Bounty Hunter
Powers/Abilities: A dual-wand wielding wizard with the psychic ability to see into the future as well as turning into a redtail hawk at will. Also he's a werewolf.
Notable Adventure: Assassinating Osama Bin Laden.
I'm into the whole brevity thing. Just give me a few paragraphs of good content and you're golden. I care more about quality than content.
<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>
I'm not sure they make canvases that big.
Foiled again by my morbid obesity.
I might do a little painting first
That was good. Damn good.
Right on. I know you're a good one to have in my corner, MM.
"I love the south. The south also scares the living shit out of me."
-- Jason Aaron
Mood Music: Never Gonna Change
TL;DR Summary
- - This RP is a crime fiction, "trailer noir" story
- - Set in upstate South Carolina, near the GA state line
- - Inspired by a bevy of southern fiction/crime fiction.
- - I'm looking for a smaller group to run the game with.
- - Characters will be a county resident, be they cop or criminal or just citizen caught up in something.
- - I have a storyline in mind, so this won't be a sandbox game per say.
- - No Klan shit, please.
In Character Info
Welcome to Pickett County, South Carolina. Situated in Upstate of South Carolina, Pickett is without a doubt the worst county in the state. Nearly all of its people are well below the poverty line, and all local industry left the county a decade earlier thanks to cheap overseas labor. With no jobs, the unemployment rate continuously hovers around 20%. Crime and vice have become Pickett's chief export. People from the state and nearby Georgia flock to the county to have a good time. The county seat, Pickett, is better known by its moniker of Saloon City. Drugs, gambling, violence, and prostitution all have become rampant in a county of only 25,000 people.
This backwoods cesspool is filled with crooked politicians, greedy preachers, bent sheriff's deputies, meth tweakers, and peckerwood redneck drug dealers. On one side of the line is Billy Brown, the undisputed kingpin of Pickett. Anything that goes on in Pickett County does so with Billy's consent. On the other side is Sheriff Eugene Parker, a five-term sheriff who is a county institution. The only thing Gene Parker cares about more than getting reelected is destroying Billy and his fiefdom. For nearly twenty years, a simmering hatred between the two men has been bubbling just beneath the surface. Now, a dead meth head threatens to tear the fragile peace asunder and plunge all of Pickett County into open warfare.
Welcome to Pickett County, son. It can be combative.
This backwoods cesspool is filled with crooked politicians, greedy preachers, bent sheriff's deputies, meth tweakers, and peckerwood redneck drug dealers. On one side of the line is Billy Brown, the undisputed kingpin of Pickett. Anything that goes on in Pickett County does so with Billy's consent. On the other side is Sheriff Eugene Parker, a five-term sheriff who is a county institution. The only thing Gene Parker cares about more than getting reelected is destroying Billy and his fiefdom. For nearly twenty years, a simmering hatred between the two men has been bubbling just beneath the surface. Now, a dead meth head threatens to tear the fragile peace asunder and plunge all of Pickett County into open warfare.
Welcome to Pickett County, son. It can be combative.
Out of Character Info:
With the original Walking Tall, Southern Bastards, James Ellroy, the music of Drive-By Truckers, and even True Detective as inspirations, this game is going to be a noirish dive into the rural southern United States. I'm a born and bred Southerner and I'm drawing heavily from my hometown and surrounding area to make this game. I have a backstory on Pickett that I'll throw up if we can get some interest in the game.
There will be a main storyline involving two factions. The two heads, Sheriff Parker and Billy, will be NPCd and played by me in addition to another character I'd like to play. Storylines can run concurrent to the main one, but as GM I'll be pushing the storyline and narrative in the story.
As far as character creation, I'd like a nice balance in the game. With this being a rural area, there won't be a huge amount of cops nor criminals. I'm looking for more people than cliches, so no genius detectives with troubled pasts or sadistic hitmen secretly with hearts of gold. This is the south, but I don't want any bullshit about the Klan or overt racism in this game. We're avoiding that.
There will be a main storyline involving two factions. The two heads, Sheriff Parker and Billy, will be NPCd and played by me in addition to another character I'd like to play. Storylines can run concurrent to the main one, but as GM I'll be pushing the storyline and narrative in the story.
As far as character creation, I'd like a nice balance in the game. With this being a rural area, there won't be a huge amount of cops nor criminals. I'm looking for more people than cliches, so no genius detectives with troubled pasts or sadistic hitmen secretly with hearts of gold. This is the south, but I don't want any bullshit about the Klan or overt racism in this game. We're avoiding that.
The Juicy Fruit Gentlemen's Club
7:08 AM
Montoya eyeballed the strip club from across the street. She sat in her unmarked and smoked. Strippers came out in street clothes. It was an easy make. Smeared makeup, that glitter paste still clinging to their faces. Hard as hell to get that stuff off. Montoya knew from experience. Her last hookup had been with a stripper. Sinful Cindy. Red hair and long legs. Montoya walked around for days with that glitter shit on her neck and around her mouth. She wore it like a badge of honor.
She blew smoke out the cracked window and waited for Allen to show up. It was frowned upon to smoke in PD cars, but it was too cold outside and she needed the smoke to get the taste and smell of the morgue out of her mouth. The place smelled like death and antiseptic. She watched the ME do autopsies on their three DBs. Six years in the detective bureau, three in homicide before coming to the MCU, and the morgue still made her queasy. It was the way they popped the skulls open to look at the brains. They used a bone saw and a crowbar to snap the top of the heads off. If it caught her on the right day, that loud pop would make her retch. The ME's report revealed nothing hinky. He agreed with her and Allen's summations on the chain of events. Walter Perkins and his two friends are captured and bound, Walter and his muscle Kendrick Taylor are beaten and tortured until they and Perkins paramour Tasha Tatum are all shotgunned in the back of the head. Straight dullsville there. No new info, no new insight.
The MCU moved to KAs and potential enemies. The strip club served as base for one of those potential enemies. She was leaving the morgue when Bullock texted her and Allen the details. Vinnie Lagotti ran the Juicy Fruit for the Gotham mob, or what was left of it after Batman hammered them. Lagotti and his men pushed dope and whores from inside the strip club. Once upon a time it was the prime spot east side to get whatever you needed. With the mob waning in Gotham, it was just one of many competitors in a steadily crowded marketplace.
Allen's unmarked rolled up and parked behind her. He got out smoking his own cigarette. She got out and started walking to the club with him.
"How'd it go at the morgue?"
"They didn't tell me anything we didn't already know."
Allen tossed out his cigarette and said, "How do you want to play it with Lagotti?"
"Straight up as possible. You know how these mob guys are. If they know something they'll be as cagey as hell, popping off at the mouth."
"They do call them wiseguys for a reason."
They went in through the door. Six men sitting around a bar and drinking. Fat Italians, old Italians, young Italians, Italians all. They stopped shooting the shit and gave Montoya and Allen hard stares. They flashed their badges, got more hard stares.
An old wop behind the bar smirked and said, "You want a job, honey, you're gonna have to come back tonight. Tell your little pal here we don't hire guys. This ain't that type of club."
Titters from the rest of the guys. Montoya locked in on the old man as Lagotti.
She said, "You don't want me stripping here. I'll end up bagging all your girls. Won't be too much money in a bunch of lesbian stripper-hookers."
"Ah." The old man grabbed his crotch and waved it in Montoya's direction. "This has been known to turn quite a few girls."
Montoya winked. "I know. And let me speak for the lesbian community as a whole when I thank you for all those women you turned gay."
The mob men fought like hell to bust out laughing. Ligotti scowled. Ligotti's face went coronary red. He shot daggers at Montoya. Allen stepped forward to play good cop.
"Where were you guys last night, six to midnight?"
One of the men said, "Fucking your mother."
Montoya started to move in. Allen held a hand out and stopped her.
Allen smiled and said, "Charming. Montoya, got a joke for you. How does an Italian get into an honest business?"
"He breaks in through the skyline."
The two detectives yukked. Allen said, "Tell you what, though. If I don't get a valid alibi in a minute, I'll call downtown and all of you are going to take a ride with us to Gotham Central. Three people were murdered last night. So, where were you?"
Ligotti said, "We were here all night. All of us. Plenty of people who work at the club can confirm that. We didn't kill no shvartz drug dealers."
"So you heard," said Montoya. "Walter Perkins was one of your competitors here on the east side. Word was he was kicking your ass in drug sales. That would piss some people off."
Ligotti shook his head. "Not us. We love plying our trade on the free market. God bless America. And that's all I gotta say about that."
Allen said, "What about--"
"No. Nix. Nein. Nyet. We got alibis and we ain't done nothing, so get the fuck outta here and don't come back til you got a warrant."
Eastern Gotham
7:23 AM
"5-0!"
Teenaged and prepubescent drug dealers scattered. The unmarked cop car jumped the curb. Bullock, Driver, and Fields came out of the unmarked booking towards the fleeing kids. Fields got his mitts on a six-year-old, Bullock pushed a thirteen-year-old into a brick wall and pinned him. Driver ran towards the oldest looking boy, all of sixteen, hauling ass down a side alley. The boy jumped a wooden fence. Driver crashed through the wood and tackled him. The kid squirmed and flailed. He hit Driver in the face. Driver slung him to the ground and kept him there.
"Let go of me, you asshole!"
He pulled the kid up by his pants and hauled him back to the corner. Driver pushed him into the car hood and gave him the third degree.
"You run this corner?" Driver asked. "This drug crew running out here, it's your crew."
"Fuck you!"
"You work this corner for Lil Walter, right? Newsflash, kid, Lil Walter is downtown at the city morgue, half his goddamn face missing. He got murdered last night. Tell me what you know."
"Fuck you, I ain't no snitch!"
Driver smashed his fist into the car hood. It dented it. The kid squeaked out something. Driver smelled piss. A trickle ran down the kid's pant leg.
"Tell me what you know, kid!"
"I ain't... I ain't ending up like Kenny, man!"
Bullock from behind Driver said, "Who is Kenny?"
"Like you don't fucking know! Police snatched him up last night and we still ain't seen him."
Bullock again, "What cops?"
"That big tall cop with the blonde hair. The scary looking one."
Driver and Bullock's eyes met. They said it at the same time. "Flass."
"Shit," said Bullock. "Look, kid, we ain't like Flass and his boys. Talk to us and we'll let you go."
The kid talked fast, almost too fast to catch. "Couple of guys been coming around here for the past few weeks now, trying to shake us down and claiming to be cops. They'd take our shit and leave, never arresting us and never showed a badge. We told Lil Walter and he said he'd put that blonde guy and his people on to, get payback for us. That was last week and we ain't seen them since."
The Juicy Fruit Gentlemen's Club
8:11 AM
The strip club's window shattered. Vinny Ligotti crashed through it and on to the street. Lagotti spit glass and teeth and blood. Commotions from inside the bar. Fights and yelling and sounds of chaos. Someone inside screamed in pain. Vinnie groaned. He heard footsteps on broken glass. Rolled over and saw Arnold Flass upside down, looking down at him with a sap in his hands.
"What did I say about that smart mouth of yours, Vinnie?"
Flass yanked the old man on to his feet. Hit him in the belly with the sap and dropped him to his knees.
"A key informant has supplied my squad with intelligence. Per the informant, a pair of men have been rolling through the eastside claiming to be cops and shaking down drug dealers. We think this is tangentially connected to a triple homicide from last night. These men are operating in my territory without my knowing of it. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."
Flass sapped Lagotti in the stomach one more time. He retched blood.
"I'm hoping you can supply me with that knowledge, Vinnie."
7:08 AM
Montoya eyeballed the strip club from across the street. She sat in her unmarked and smoked. Strippers came out in street clothes. It was an easy make. Smeared makeup, that glitter paste still clinging to their faces. Hard as hell to get that stuff off. Montoya knew from experience. Her last hookup had been with a stripper. Sinful Cindy. Red hair and long legs. Montoya walked around for days with that glitter shit on her neck and around her mouth. She wore it like a badge of honor.
She blew smoke out the cracked window and waited for Allen to show up. It was frowned upon to smoke in PD cars, but it was too cold outside and she needed the smoke to get the taste and smell of the morgue out of her mouth. The place smelled like death and antiseptic. She watched the ME do autopsies on their three DBs. Six years in the detective bureau, three in homicide before coming to the MCU, and the morgue still made her queasy. It was the way they popped the skulls open to look at the brains. They used a bone saw and a crowbar to snap the top of the heads off. If it caught her on the right day, that loud pop would make her retch. The ME's report revealed nothing hinky. He agreed with her and Allen's summations on the chain of events. Walter Perkins and his two friends are captured and bound, Walter and his muscle Kendrick Taylor are beaten and tortured until they and Perkins paramour Tasha Tatum are all shotgunned in the back of the head. Straight dullsville there. No new info, no new insight.
The MCU moved to KAs and potential enemies. The strip club served as base for one of those potential enemies. She was leaving the morgue when Bullock texted her and Allen the details. Vinnie Lagotti ran the Juicy Fruit for the Gotham mob, or what was left of it after Batman hammered them. Lagotti and his men pushed dope and whores from inside the strip club. Once upon a time it was the prime spot east side to get whatever you needed. With the mob waning in Gotham, it was just one of many competitors in a steadily crowded marketplace.
Allen's unmarked rolled up and parked behind her. He got out smoking his own cigarette. She got out and started walking to the club with him.
"How'd it go at the morgue?"
"They didn't tell me anything we didn't already know."
Allen tossed out his cigarette and said, "How do you want to play it with Lagotti?"
"Straight up as possible. You know how these mob guys are. If they know something they'll be as cagey as hell, popping off at the mouth."
"They do call them wiseguys for a reason."
They went in through the door. Six men sitting around a bar and drinking. Fat Italians, old Italians, young Italians, Italians all. They stopped shooting the shit and gave Montoya and Allen hard stares. They flashed their badges, got more hard stares.
An old wop behind the bar smirked and said, "You want a job, honey, you're gonna have to come back tonight. Tell your little pal here we don't hire guys. This ain't that type of club."
Titters from the rest of the guys. Montoya locked in on the old man as Lagotti.
She said, "You don't want me stripping here. I'll end up bagging all your girls. Won't be too much money in a bunch of lesbian stripper-hookers."
"Ah." The old man grabbed his crotch and waved it in Montoya's direction. "This has been known to turn quite a few girls."
Montoya winked. "I know. And let me speak for the lesbian community as a whole when I thank you for all those women you turned gay."
The mob men fought like hell to bust out laughing. Ligotti scowled. Ligotti's face went coronary red. He shot daggers at Montoya. Allen stepped forward to play good cop.
"Where were you guys last night, six to midnight?"
One of the men said, "Fucking your mother."
Montoya started to move in. Allen held a hand out and stopped her.
Allen smiled and said, "Charming. Montoya, got a joke for you. How does an Italian get into an honest business?"
"He breaks in through the skyline."
The two detectives yukked. Allen said, "Tell you what, though. If I don't get a valid alibi in a minute, I'll call downtown and all of you are going to take a ride with us to Gotham Central. Three people were murdered last night. So, where were you?"
Ligotti said, "We were here all night. All of us. Plenty of people who work at the club can confirm that. We didn't kill no shvartz drug dealers."
"So you heard," said Montoya. "Walter Perkins was one of your competitors here on the east side. Word was he was kicking your ass in drug sales. That would piss some people off."
Ligotti shook his head. "Not us. We love plying our trade on the free market. God bless America. And that's all I gotta say about that."
Allen said, "What about--"
"No. Nix. Nein. Nyet. We got alibis and we ain't done nothing, so get the fuck outta here and don't come back til you got a warrant."
Eastern Gotham
7:23 AM
"5-0!"
Teenaged and prepubescent drug dealers scattered. The unmarked cop car jumped the curb. Bullock, Driver, and Fields came out of the unmarked booking towards the fleeing kids. Fields got his mitts on a six-year-old, Bullock pushed a thirteen-year-old into a brick wall and pinned him. Driver ran towards the oldest looking boy, all of sixteen, hauling ass down a side alley. The boy jumped a wooden fence. Driver crashed through the wood and tackled him. The kid squirmed and flailed. He hit Driver in the face. Driver slung him to the ground and kept him there.
"Let go of me, you asshole!"
He pulled the kid up by his pants and hauled him back to the corner. Driver pushed him into the car hood and gave him the third degree.
"You run this corner?" Driver asked. "This drug crew running out here, it's your crew."
"Fuck you!"
"You work this corner for Lil Walter, right? Newsflash, kid, Lil Walter is downtown at the city morgue, half his goddamn face missing. He got murdered last night. Tell me what you know."
"Fuck you, I ain't no snitch!"
Driver smashed his fist into the car hood. It dented it. The kid squeaked out something. Driver smelled piss. A trickle ran down the kid's pant leg.
"Tell me what you know, kid!"
"I ain't... I ain't ending up like Kenny, man!"
Bullock from behind Driver said, "Who is Kenny?"
"Like you don't fucking know! Police snatched him up last night and we still ain't seen him."
Bullock again, "What cops?"
"That big tall cop with the blonde hair. The scary looking one."
Driver and Bullock's eyes met. They said it at the same time. "Flass."
"Shit," said Bullock. "Look, kid, we ain't like Flass and his boys. Talk to us and we'll let you go."
The kid talked fast, almost too fast to catch. "Couple of guys been coming around here for the past few weeks now, trying to shake us down and claiming to be cops. They'd take our shit and leave, never arresting us and never showed a badge. We told Lil Walter and he said he'd put that blonde guy and his people on to, get payback for us. That was last week and we ain't seen them since."
The Juicy Fruit Gentlemen's Club
8:11 AM
The strip club's window shattered. Vinny Ligotti crashed through it and on to the street. Lagotti spit glass and teeth and blood. Commotions from inside the bar. Fights and yelling and sounds of chaos. Someone inside screamed in pain. Vinnie groaned. He heard footsteps on broken glass. Rolled over and saw Arnold Flass upside down, looking down at him with a sap in his hands.
"What did I say about that smart mouth of yours, Vinnie?"
Flass yanked the old man on to his feet. Hit him in the belly with the sap and dropped him to his knees.
"A key informant has supplied my squad with intelligence. Per the informant, a pair of men have been rolling through the eastside claiming to be cops and shaking down drug dealers. We think this is tangentially connected to a triple homicide from last night. These men are operating in my territory without my knowing of it. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."
Flass sapped Lagotti in the stomach one more time. He retched blood.
"I'm hoping you can supply me with that knowledge, Vinnie."
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