Byrd Man

Music Appreciation Thread 2.0

I remember the old thread, but never took part in it. So, let's rectify that.

I'd give that a 7/10. First time hearing it and I'm surprised at how modern it is. It's reminds me very much of a 90's R&B song in the best way possible. I really like the music. The lyrics kind of left something to be desired, but I'll cut it some slack since it seems that English might not be his first language.

The Crew – "The Long Good Friday" (A British Noir RP)

Tulse Hill
10:48 AM

Etan Ben-David inspected the piece of black metal with a surgical eye. There were long, deep scratches running along it revealing the metal beneath it. As far as Ben-David could work out, it had broken loose in some kind of car chase. There were pieces of the metal scattered up and down the streets around the Diamond Exchange. He’d taken his time to collect each piece carefully and place them into a garbage bag for future inspection. As he rose from his knees to return to the Zinkman building, something glistening in the morning sun caught his eye.

“What have we here?”

Ben-David produced a pair of tweezers from his pocket and plucked a bullet casing from the middle of the street. He lifted it to his nose and took a sniff before dropping it inside another plastic bag. Slowly he was beginning to gather a picture of what had happened last night, but there were still gaps that needed to be filled.

His first step had been to pay a visit to the basement. It contents had been cleared out earlier by Adam but the Zinkmans had given Etan a fairly detailed itinerary of what had been inside – and what had been left inside afterwards. Whoever had hit the building were here for the diamonds and the diamonds alone and they had chosen this weekend for a reason. That much was obvious. What was less obvious was who the flecks of blood on the basement floor belonged to. He made a note of it and then move on.

Secondly, he interviewed the two on-duty security guards. They were both tired by the time he sat them down in the draughty office passing for an interrogation room. Each man made their way through several cups of coffee as he interviewed them to keep themselves awake. In the main they had very little information of any use to share, but that in and of itself had been revealing. It meant that whoever had hit the Diamond Exchange had been professional. That they had bound and gagged the men and kept silent around them spoke to that. Something had gone wrong, of that Etan was sure, but it wasn’t due to a lack of a professionalism.

Then Ben-David had inspected the building’s security system. The Zinkman’s ran an autodialer system that had a direct line to the local police station. They were unreliable. Etan could think of three to four alternatives that were more suitable. Yet something about the ease with which the alarm was deactivated made Ben-David suspicious. The Diamond Exchange was peculiar in that its architecture demanded its wiring be run not along skirting boards along the floors but vertically up through the ceilings. As a result anyone wanting to tamper with the alarm would have had to access the roof of the building. Getting up there was not a problem. It was that whoever hit the Zinkmans knew they had to which was intriguing. There was only one conclusion.

There was an inside man.

As Etan arrived back from canvassing the streets he looked to the nightwatchman Bruce. “Do you have the names for me?”

Bruce nodded tentatively and handed over a piece of paper with the names of the three other men that the Zinkman’s employed as security guards. Etan reach the list studiously, burning each man’s name and home address into his memory, before folding the piece of paper and placing it into his pocket.

There was work to be done.

---

Herne Hill
12:12 PM

“So that’s where we stand.”

Charlie looked from Bobby’s dour face to Coach’s even distraught one. Both men had their hands in their jacket pockets and were now looking at their shoes intently.

“It’s the best I could do,” Charlie said with a touch of a defensiveness. “Small bloody miracle I didn’t come out of that room a few fingers short.”

“Still, forty-eight hours isn’t a long time,” said Coach. “Especially since we’re down a man.”

“How is Red?” Bobby asked.

“Still out of it,” said Charlie. “I took him home after I met with the Kanes. Hopefully he’ll be fit come tomorrow morning, if this fucking thing last this long. I got some ideas on how to track down Freddy.”

“You too?” said Coach.

Charlie looked at the older man with surprise. “What have you got?”

“You go first."

“Sod it,” Charlie sighed. “Look, Freddy can’t do a damn thing with the diamonds. He’s gonna need to lay them off on someone to fence. That kind of action, there’s only a handful of people in London capable of handling that much weight. I say we go around and pay them all a visit, see if our boy Freddy has been to see any of them.”

“Where would we start?” Bobby asked. “We know people who fence appliances and low-level stuff. This was our first time actually taking something that's not cash money.”

“I got a guy,” said Charlie.

Coach rubbed his mustache with a thumbnail.

“That’s a place to start. I may have something, too.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wrinkled scrap of paper. He held it up between two fingers.

“I snagged the plate on the car Freddy was in.”

“You are just now telling us this?” Bobby asked incredulously.

“I was a bit busy making sure Red didn’t die.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too much, Bob,” said Charlie. “There’s a good chance the car was stolen beforehand. The bastard had plotted this out.”

“Doesn’t hurt to check it out,” said Coach.

“In this case?” asked Charlie. “A dead end that takes time away from finding Freddy just might. But, yeah, we can split up. I’m gonna go see my guy and try to run down a list of names.”

“There’s a copper I heard about,” said Coach. “A bent one.”

“Is there any other kind?” asked Bobby.

“He can look into the plate for us,” said Coach. “I might have enough cash on me to pay for his services.”

“I’ll go with Charlie,” said Bobby. “Two people can cover more ground.”

“There’s a smart lad,” Charlie said with a gentle slap to Bobby’s shoulder. He pulled a small wad of cash from his wallet and passed it to Coach. “Just in case your copper friend wants to charge us through the nose. We’ll meet back up at that Italian place where we planned out Loomis Job?”

“How could I forget it,” said Coach. “Let’s say ‘round three?”

The three said their goodbyes before drifting off in separate directions. While Charlie and Bobby headed for Peckham, Coach and his temporary car made its way towards Battersea.

Avengers: Heroes United!

Alright. I'm gonna do a couple lines of Adderall and see what the fuck happens.

Avengers: Heroes United!

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

I'll tell you what: you put out a post that's worth 13 posts in quality, and we'll see.

In hindsight, a TL 13 was probably way too high for the encounter, but given that the first encounter was wrapped up in like a day, I had thought it wouldn't be a problem if people had kept the pace up.

@AndyC

You know, I agree about that second point. Maybe the trouble was splitting it up between two locations?

Also, what's worth 13 points in your eyes? Is it like pornography and you'll know it when you see it?

Avengers: Heroes United!

It's a threat level 13. What if I did 13 posts today that met the criteria, trying to resolve the issue and being the appropriate link. Besides spamming the fuck out of the IC thread, would that work?

The Crew – "The Long Good Friday" (A British Noir RP)

Depftord
8:00 AM

Charlie sat in the waiting room of the import-export office that served as the Kane’s front. His left knee couldn’t stop shaking, a nervous tic that he was doing without really doing it. He was on his third cigarette since arriving twenty minutes ago. There was a thump, followed by some shouting from behind the office door. What sounded like a muffled scream came through. Charlie expelled smoke and coughed as the door swung open.

“Come on inside,” said the heavyset bodyguard. “He’ll see you now.”

Charlie stood up and walked through the door. The first thing he saw was the towel of blood on the floor. A man was kneeling in front of it, holding on to his left hand and openly weeping. A tall, thin man in a kimono stood in front of the weeping man, a samurai sword in his hand.

“Gotta pay the toll, lad. You can go, but I get to keep the finger.”

The bodyguard helped the man up and showed him out. The man in the kimono held up a severed little finger and inspected it in the office light. Charlie could feel bile rising up in his throat at the sight.

“I served during the occupation of Japan,” he said, not bothering to look away from the finger as he spoke. “Weren’t many of us, Yanks mostly did the heavy lifting, but I was one of them. Japan is… a fascinating place. A wonderful people and an amazing culture. As you can probably tell, it’s a big inspiration to me.”

Charlie noticed the office was decked out in all kinds of Japanese and Asian shit. Bamboo screens, katanas mounted on the wall, and there was painting of… what looked like a woman having sex with a squid.

“The Yakuza are like the London mobs, but with an actual tradition and culture. Kingpins here come and go, their gangs turning to dust after they’re gone. But the Yazuka’s foundation is so strong, it has survived for over three hundred years. Do you know why?”

“Why?” Charlie whispered.

“Structure,” he said, holding the little finger up for Charlie to examine. “This is the price for failure there. It’s the price for failure that I use.”

He suddenly looked at Charlie and actually took him in.

“I’m Bill Kane, by the way. Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m an associate of Red Turner’s.”

“Oh! The ginger bloke we hired to nick those diamonds?” Kane tossed the severed finger over his shoulder and pointed the sword towards Charlie, a large smile on his face. “How’d it go, lad?”

“Less... than ideal.”

Kane’s smile disappeared from his face. Charlie was suddenly all too aware of the sword in his hands.

“Explain. And be fucking quick about it.”

----

Putney
8:10 AM

Diamonds glittered and shimmered on the dingy mattress. Freddy had scattered the rocks across Deborah’s naked body in celebration of the score and they made love. That was four hours ago and the sexual desire that fueled that act had long ago faded. Now, Freddy found himself in his boxers, picking the stones up off the mattress while Debbie made tea on the flat’s lone hotplate.

“When are we leaving for Belize?”

“Soon,” Freddy lied. “You may find this shocking, but the people at Pan-Am don’t take diamonds as currency for plane tickets, love. I gotta offload some of the stones to get cash. I got a buyer lined up, but I’m not meeting him until tonight.”

The part about the buyer was true. He knew a pawnbroker that operated a fencing business on the side. Even at fifty pence on the pound for the diamonds, Freddy would be able to get enough cash buy a plane ticket to wherever he wanted to go. Debbie just wouldn’t be going wherever that was. She was great in bed and as one of the bunnies at the Playboy Club, she could turn heads and make men drool. But she’d served her purpose. Freddy would have enough money to have an entire harem of Debbies if he so desired.

“What time is this meeting?”

She came back into the bedroom, wearing the button-up shirt that Freddy had been wearing earlier. The shirt was all she wore and Freddy noted that she wore it well. In Debbie’s hands were two cups of tea. She passed one to him while she cradled the other in her hands.

“‘Round eight tonight.”

Freddy sipped the tea. Add making a good cuppa to the things Debbie could do well. He eyed her over and liked what he saw.

“We have loads of time to take it easy,” he said with a grin. “Whatever shall we do?”

Debbie grinned and set the tea down beside the bed. She started to slowly unbutton Freddy’s shirt. He resisted the urge to sigh. He was going to miss her.

----

Depftord

“It’s quite the predicament.”

Jimmy Kane leaned against the side of his cousin’s desk with his arms crossed. Bill sat behind the desk with his feet up. Both of them were staring straight ahead at Charlie. To look at Jimmy was to see an inverse image of Bill. Jimmy was short and squat, his dark hair thin and receding. He had the build of a rugby player past his prime.

His mannerisms were also the exact opposite of Bill. Jimmy was soft-spoken and contemplative. Several times he would pause for long stretches of time before he spoke, as if he had to compose the next sentence and say it in his head before he dared to speak.

“You see, Charlie, despite the illegal nature of some of our businesses, we treat arrangements like legal agreements. Turner entered into an agreement with us, and this unfortunate development constitutes a breach of that verbal contract.”

“But the circumstances---”

“Are not our bloody fault,” snapped Bill. “Isn’t our fault you chose a perfidious cunt to work with.”

“Bill’s right,” said Jimmy. “This fellow who ripped you off was picked by you. One of your gang members double-crossing you does not change the fact that you’re still short the diamonds, Charlie.”

“At least give us time to make this right,” Charlie pleaded. “I want that son of a bitch so bad that I can taste it. I’ll deliver you the diamonds and his head on a fucking platter.”

Jimmy looked over at Bill. The two men exchanged silent looks before Jimmy turned back to Charlie.

“Twenty-four hours.”

“No,” Bill said with a smile. “Forty-eight. That’ll put it on Easter Sunday. It’s more poetic. Resurrection from death and all that.”

“Very well,” said Jimmy. “I’ll show you out, Charlie.”

Charlie stood on legs that were close to wobbling. He had to concentrate to not look weak in front of the Kanes. Bill nodded at him and smiled warmly as he walked out in Jimmy’s wake. Once the door was closed, Jimmy spun around.

“You are very lucky that Bill has such a poor memory, Charlie.”

“What’s that mean?” Charlie asked, even though he already knew what he was hinting at.

“Roy McCone? He works for us. And you’re on his shitlist.”

“Fuck,” Charlie said under his breath. “Fuck-fuck-fuck.”

“Sounds about right. On top of these diamonds, you owe us fifteen grand, Charlie.”

“Look, it wasn’t me who fucked up that package.”

“Just like it wasn’t you who took off with the diamonds,” hissed Jimmy. “But once again, it falls to you. You want to be a fucking player, Charlie? Then step up and act like one. Someone steals your diamonds, you skin the bastard alive. Some stick-up man steals your coke, you stick a shotgun up their arse and pull the trigger. Do you know why Bill and I are where we are in life? Because Bill chops off people’s fingers when they fuck up. If you don’t want to be eight-finger Charlie, then I suggest you get to fucking work.”

Charlie took a deep breath to calm himself.

“I’ll do whatever it takes. Mr. Kane.”

“Good.” Jimmy placed a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “See that you do, kid. I like you, it’s the only reason I haven’t let Bill kill you yet.”

Avengers: Heroes United!

Gotta be able to prove it in-game.

Avengers: Heroes United!

I'll work on it tomorrow afternoon.

Avengers: Heroes United!

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

Yeah, shame on you, slacker! (Looks around shifty-eyed, hoping nobody catches onto the fact that I forgot to enforce the time limits.)

I'm gonna say y'all have til Friday on both counts.

@AndyC

Avengers: Heroes United!

Fuuuck. I forgot about the time limits.