It hadn't been very long since the morning Domonic found the new pressure cooker he put in his apartment had something in it. He had exhausted his last three in his numerous attempts to stop Stand-Up Guy from foiling his plans. They worked as well as he could have hoped, except for the part where he was put behind bars. Or rather, in a little grey room with abhorrently saccharine employees breathing down his neck and only allowing him to use plastic spoons and glue sticks for everything. That was well enough, he supposed. He could still kill someone with either of those things, if he really wanted it hard enough... He didn't even need to explode two of the pressure cookers. They were deterrent enough, and it bought Domonic just enough time.
The problem was, it was an expensive household appliance, and once you make a pressure cooker into a bomb, it's never going to be a pressure cooker again. So he had to buy a new one every time. This time, he resolved to use other methods. His pressure cooker would be used for pressure cookery only from this point on. But now something else was in it.
It exuded an air of expensiveness, and as he opened it, he noted (almost aloud) that it smelled, frankly, like shit.
Inside, there was a formal-looking invitation, an address, and money enough for ten more pressure cookers. What was this? Some kind of taunt? Some demonstration by a stuffy eccentric that wanted to demonstrate some illusion of omnipresence? Did they think he was stupid enough to fall into that kind of trap!?... He cursed the note in Russian spitefully. But there was something about it that was definitely off. Who would put this kind of effort into inviting him into a trap unless they were as insane and economically detached as Domonic made himself out to be? Obviously, this Cesare character was loaded. Dangerous, but loaded...
Perhaps Big Game would pay him a visit and show him who was the dangerous, loaded man in this country... After casing whatever fancy joint this shady character invited him to, of course. Maybe he could squeeze something valuable out of him before the job was done... He also really, really needed a lead in crime elsewhere. Ohio wasn't exactly a happening place, and maybe he'd run into the golden guy there. The man probably oozed money. He fancied you could probably rob him by accident... He hoped...
That was why he smuggled his weapons arsenal across three or four state borders in an old jeep. Wearing jeans, an old T-shirt, and the least conspicuous gas-station sunglasses he could stuff in his pocket, he stood and eyed the building he was led to. He then eyed the address, just to be sure. And then he eyed the colorful cast approaching it.
Rubbing the bridge of his nose and keeping his head down, he followed them in.
