April 10th, 2012 11:35 PM
The cartel was a lovely way to work among the slums of Chicago when information was needed. In this particular case, the scene was fitting what with the heavy rain that poured and the ambient display of light works the city offered among the moonlit night. Cigarettes were something he preferred, a beautiful commodity that indicated leisure and a high pleasure. Cigars were his favorite, Cuban to be exact and just like now, whenever he got the chance, one would be brought to his lips and nicely lit. The robust taste of the smoke was exotic and the exhale was just as rewarding. They surely knew how to treat a guy when they needed him to come out among heavy weather in order to secure their business or broker a trade. Which did he come for when clad with a briefcase? Maybe just a little of both. The male walked down a few steps and knocked on a thick metal door. The slot in the top center of the door slid open as a set of pupils peered out.
“Your boss called,” he casually said as he let his shades slide down with his free hand just to reveal those eyes, a tinge of crimson coating the left and a deep blue coating the right. “Said she needs to see what can be offered out among the cartel now.”
He patted the briefcase for extra measure and in just a few seconds, the steel framed and gated door rolled open and fully clicked open. He kept a smirk to himself as he greeted the obvious Bouncer before entering inside, the door closing and sealing itself shut. Before him stood the booming sounds of rave music, blue lights that were adorned on the side corners of the gray sleek slabbed walls and there was that ominous musk. It was mixed with sweat, shame and dare he say iron? He could always smell when blood was thrown in the mix on something, especially when taking into account that there were makeshift “rooms” where several figures laid sprawled out on dirty mattresses behind Chaffing Fences as if they were dogs and this were their personal K-9 kennel.
Yes, he was within a drug ring of which various exploits of trafficking were involved upon. Still, he paid it all no mind when the Bouncer himself began to lead the way, another person guarding the door for extra measure. His dark brown dress shoes clicked against the stone exterior, walking past a few faces that painted the mixture of desperation, outcry for help and a deep dark lusty passion and hidden desire all wrapped into one. He paid them no mind however, walking forward until he came to a room with a open door, which ironically, had the white light at the end of it all.
He did not have to wait for long. She was already present, a smile across her dark red coated lips. While her skin sported the casual sleek and glowing array of caramel skin, her face bore the distinctive marks of someone Asian; Blasian, dare he say? This was complete with a signature mole near her lips and Glasses that were Oriental in design. What she wore were leopard printed materials as that seemed to be the common trend among those out in the lowly world of crime, her chest a bit revealing and age clearly telling itself off about her as most likely, she was close to being in her thirties but still clinging on to the remnants of her youth.
“Ah,” he said with feigned interest, nipping the cigar of which truly held up his time right down on the metal table itself. “You must be Laohu?”
She smiled.“You would be correct.”
It wasn’t her real name, naturally. Every crimelord went by a codename and hers happened to be Laouhu, Chinese for The Tiger. It was ironic she named herself that, but clearly wore Leopard fur among other things, but he wasn’t there to question her intelligence or common sense. What he was there to do was business and so he would get right down to it the moment her pursed lips opened once more to ask “So I take it you brought the goods?”
He opened the briefcase, smiling as he stood up, for this right here would be top of the line and a product to sell all the same and he was the salesman for the brand.
“Now, my client is offering something extremely unique to you, Miss Laohu,” he continued. “Before your very eyes, you are laying witness to something he has created and while it’s his goal to sell it out to a few private investors in Italy, he trusted me to deliver this high grade material out to you personally as a means to broker the States into a new era of commerce. But don’t let me do all the talking. You, mi senora, have come to see results. I am here to show you the sample.”
Consider herself intrigued. Maybe it was the way he spoke with such formality and enthusiasm and that worked well with a salesman because it was their very goal to get their audience hooked. Or, just maybe, it was the way she would have something of personal gain only for her empire. She looked to the burly bouncer and nodded. The man walked away and so, this Salesman himself took it upon himself to examine his fingernails while Laohu herself took it upon herself to bask in the ambience of the Asian inspired music casually playing out in the open complex of a building. His ears perked when he heard the struggle however, the sound of another male struggling to get loose of the larger male and that was complete with a “Please, don’t do this. I’ll pay!”
“Oh, you’re most certainly right you will,” Laouhu stated as she rose forth from her chair now that the waiting process was finally done and over with. “Mister Belle, I would like for you to meet Mister Santagato.”
He casually slid the shades on his face off, revealing those odd colors and boy, did that seem to make the male struggling against the larger figure come to a panicked calm. Belle looked him up and down, his mind working everything out before Laohu herself began to speak.
“Mister Santagato here is an entrepreneur himself in a way. He hails from New York, Queens to be exact. Like any College Student, you find yourself in a bind and I am more than willing to help them out. You just have to pay me back. Our dearest friend here made it off big on Social Media projects and oher various works, but he didn’t seem to pay me any mind. That was until dear ol’ Bruno here came knocking on his door.”
Belle merely gave a seething look as if something stung him, but it was ultimately just a tease on the fact that this five foot ten caucasian figure who most likely had Italian or Greek ties to his name and blood had very well found himself in an unfortunate situation, to which the male himself stated “Aww, why didn’t you just pay her back?”
Of course begging came out the figure’s partially bearded and baritonic face, but this hulking Bruno brought a hand to his mouth, ushering him to a forced silence. Laohu chuckled, her suede teal colored heels with black bottoms clicking as she walked forth with a syringe from the briefcase itself. “I told him if he can do this one favor for me, I’ll let him off the hook. That is provided this does what your client says it does.”
Belle nodded when she handed him the syringe to do the dirty work. “Of course it does. Now what you want to do is apply it directly in the neck or shoot it up in the arm where the veins are for instant results and since our Mister Santagato here is one unwilling participant to the drug, we’re just gonna have to spring for the neck. You can hold him still, right?”
Firm on his promise, Bruno began manhandling the male of average build with dark olive green hazel eyes. He placed the figure’s neck out into an exposed open. Belle was not a man to be sloppy. He pulled out an alcohol wipe and began wiping the neck down until a green vein revealed itself and with a quick jab, the syringe that contained a dark blue liquid was inserted forth into the figure’s neck. Within less than that same timeframe, he pulled it out and placed a tapped cotton swab right on the spot with just a slight pressure to help coat down the bleeding. Bruno had let the male go by then and it was quite apparent to the three cohorts that it was already taking effect.
The drugged male before them began to stagger around at first, but there was a clear evident daze to his eyes as if lost within a smoky haze. That in itself had come with a goofy smile, though clearly, his common sense was still intact as he chuckled before saying “I uh, I uh, I shouldn’t be here.”
“Nonsense,” Belle stated as he got in front of the male. “You’re here with me, your friend.”
The drugged male’s eyes widened in surprise and slowly, but surely, he figured it all out, though as everyone was aware, he was still slurring everything. That was until Belle had said those words and he gotten it all worked out that they were friends.
“As you can see,” Belle stated. “It lowers a person’s inhibitions and makes them completely susceptible to the first voice that speaks to them, sort of like Cupid and his arrow. That is but one part of this Dominance however.”
Of course, he showed what more could be done. Belle suggested to this figure they were boyfriends and had known one another for quite some time. Then, he suggested to this masculine figure that he like wearing frilly things and as a result, there was quite the effeminate squeak and laughter as the male was eventually wearing pink underwear, rainbow socks and whatever else he could find among the building until before them, this Mister Santagato wanted to be simply known as Joey, a play on Joe.
“It eventually wears off within a few hours, but there’s a kicker,” Belle stated. “My client’s hidden feature blocks telepathy, so let’s say you wanted someone to get a job done and a Telepath needs to read motives and find the source of it all. They won’t and if you tell them to forget everything that happened as a result when it does wear off, poof. Instant fail-safe proof right there.”
Now, Laohu was definitely sold. They spoke details, complete with this drugged figure resting underneath him due to how he phrased everything. Bruno had briefly stepped out, returning with a Briefcase all on his own. What was within it was clear, a payload of cash. Laohu wanted orders right away and she would get just that. The shipment was set to come in within a few days no more than a week. There was also just a little incentive for him to carry this Santagato fella back to New York and for him to forget this entire ordeal, though Belle may have slipped a few suggestive thoughts in the head here and there for him to remember something.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” he stated as he exited, the door slamming shut hard with a metal clank. Belle casually led the other figure into a limo and when it had drove off, he pulled out a phone, making a phone call. When the person picked up on the other line, he simply stated “Mission success. Now on to the next clientele. But what should I tell them?”
He nodded and continued that pattern before hanging up. He looked at the male before him in the limo.
“Be a good boy, would you? I’ve got a few other important figures to visit before the night is over with and then you and I buddy will be on a flight back to the York. I've got five more strings to pull.”
He brought forth another very similar briefcase. Within it were syringes, but of a different color. War among the Cartels was good for the economy right?
Who exactly could they weed out among this all? There was only one way to find out.
