Ch.248Request Log #020 – Murder Machine (5)

Dreaming of a regular life while working as a detective is absurd. I decided to head out immediately. Staying up for two or three nights straight isn’t difficult. I left my apartment right away.

I grabbed a rope too. I still had extra waterproof sacks in my trunk. To persuade or coax a gang, I needed to appear as someone they couldn’t handle. Otherwise, things would get messy.

I shouldn’t target the low-level members. If I hurt them, they’d band together in anger. Injuring the foot soldiers meant the head was safe. It’s better to focus solely on the leader from the start.

How far this would go depended on the gang boss I was meeting. If he’d found backing to slowly kill Carmen, I’d have to kill him. If not, I just needed to buy time with threats.

I drove across the bridge toward Brooklyn. Brooklyn… were these guys from the naval shipyard? I had no connections with navy men. Had there been coastal bombardments? I couldn’t remember.

I arrived in Brooklyn. It’s where Polish people and goblins gather. The goblins who died after receiving Gancan’s blood were here too. Their cause of death was listed as natural. Truly, they just died without any warning signs.

It probably worked on a similar principle to the death magic that Frenchman used. If so, they probably wouldn’t die properly even with Gancan’s power. Life would be quite miserable if you couldn’t die even by the ledger keeper’s hand.

For an amateur gang that works during the day and roams in packs at night, their headquarters would likely be empty or guarded by just one or two people at this hour. Gangs had to work until they could live off protection money alone.

Or they could bow their heads to larger organizations. Since they were near the sea, they could work with the Italians who dominated eastern New York… but they must be stubborn.

Street kids are generally like that. They believe they can succeed on their own. They think they don’t need to bow to others and try to take flight from cliffs. The result is just a splattered bloodstain.

Am I from the streets too? Probably not. Since receiving the curse in the Argonne Forest, my birth certificate has always listed the Argonne Forest as my birthplace.

I’m far from overconfident. What I’ve always had is a sense of duty, not overconfidence. Jobs need to be finished. That’s how it’s always been. An unchanging principle. This time is no different.

I’d heard the boss’s name, but I wouldn’t go to the shipyard looking like a detective. No, the so-called boss was likely not working at the shipyard at all. That was entirely possible.

They wouldn’t make someone who paints the bottom of ships their boss when his brother had died. I headed to the warehouse by the dock that my informant had identified as their headquarters.

A bit further south was an island used for tourism, but not here. Near the shipyard, there was only a gray concrete beach with no apparent purpose. I could understand why Selkie couldn’t swim here.

I could see the sea that drove Selkie mad. The same sea that brought her back to her senses. I approached the warehouse where I sensed activity inside. I moved just like when I dealt with the stowaways.

I lightly placed my foot on the brick wall of the warehouse, jumped up, and pulled myself onto the dusty windowsill. I peered inside while exposing my face as little as possible.

The man matching the description from my informant was there. Greasy striped shirt, round large face, dirty unkempt beard, and a firmly set felt hat.

They called themselves a gang, but they seemed more like shipyard workers causing trouble on their own. To ordinary people, these guys and real gangs were all just thugs, no different from each other.

That wasn’t my concern. What mattered were the people with him. Specifically, the nolls. The notary who replaced the dead noll and a noll branch manager whose face I barely recognized were there.

It wasn’t close enough to hear their conversation clearly, but I could make out faint sounds if I listened carefully. Since the notary couldn’t speak, all the voices I heard must be from the female noll. They seemed to have just arrived.

“So, why did you call us? You stubbornly refused when we suggested working together before… Even nolls get hurt when a man keeps shaking his head. It’s too late to talk business now, isn’t it?”

I guessed right about their stubbornness. If they’d already refused once, it was unlikely the Italian nolls would now agree to back them. I took another look inside with one eye.

Two nolls wearing hyena fur coats with guns hidden in their clothes were guarding behind the notary and branch manager. While I did have connections with the mafia, I shouldn’t barge in right away.

If I tried to have a face-to-face conversation with that gang boss, things could go sideways. I needed to listen to their conversation first. I hung by my fingers to avoid the watchful eyes of the nolls.

The conversation continued. All I had to do was hang on, and I was very good at hanging on. I always had been and always would be.

“I-I’m not asking for collaboration. I want to work under you. I’ll give you everything—the goods we sell to shipyard workers, the rum we supply to bars around here…”

Why would he take such a submissive approach? Perhaps he realized he couldn’t handle this situation without the nolls’ help. If so, there was only one reason—the same reason I could handle it.

The noll branch manager was suspicious of this too. She was the smartest among the nolls under the Godmother. I had been confused about her name when I first visited Giuseppina’s branch, but not anymore.

She wasn’t as loyal as Giuseppina, nor as strong as the noll the Godmother brought from Italy, but this branch manager was a businesswoman. Organized crime needed money to operate, and she was good with money.

“Suddenly being so submissive… Well, well. This isn’t about business, Isaac. No way. It seems like you want to borrow our gunmen? Right?”

She’s quick with calculations. She even seemed to have anticipated this situation, judging by her mocking tone. I looked around inside while hanging from the windowsill, staying out of sight of the guards. There weren’t more gang members.

Well, the situation was too urgent to station armed men for a show of force when meeting the Italian nolls. I quietly listened to what he was saying. As soon as he finished, I let go of the windowsill and jumped down.

“My brother died. My brother died, and I heard some gill-bearing bastards were burying my Jake somewhere…”

I know Carmen’s backers. Just the word “gills” made it obvious that her backers were the Irish gang they’d nearly gone to war with before. In that case, it was better for me to step in directly.

I let go of the warehouse’s ventilation window and jumped down. Dusting off my hands, I headed to the entrance and knocked on the door. The peephole indicated it was definitely used by gang members.

The peephole opened. The noll on guard recognized me and immediately went to the branch manager. I could hear voices from inside.

“This is the operator the Godmother herself called a lion-like man. He seems to have come. Should I let him in?”

The decision was up to the notary. It was also the notary’s job to decide who they would work with. While I wasn’t familiar with this particular notary, this time there was either the Godmother’s favor or interest involved.

If so, I could use that. After waiting patiently, the door soon opened. The face was younger than the previous notary, but the cut tongue was no different from the previous one.

It seemed that among Italian nolls, this was the only self-destructive way for male nolls to gain respect or find usefulness. I entered without worrying about getting shot in the back.

When I saw Giuseppina, it felt like the notary would quietly observe what was said and then translate, but this time the branch manager was taking the lead. The inexperienced notary was being ignored.

“Well, look who it is! Isn’t this the operator who was at dinner with the Godmother and Madam The Morrígan last time? Your nickname is quite funny, isn’t it? Leone, lion! Who in the world uses the word ‘lion’ mockingly as a nickname? Right? It’s funny. Speak freely! I’m quite an anti-authoritarian noll. You know that.”

One should be more careful with words when someone is being overly friendly. If I spoke freely at her invitation, I might miss opportunities. I decided to deny it first.

“What matters is that the noll Godmother herself gave me a name to be called by. Isn’t that right?”

The branch manager clicked her tongue twice as if disappointed. It seems she was indeed trying to test me.

“You’re not easy to fool. But you came at a very good time, didn’t you? Just when our Isaac here was about to make an absurd proposal. If you have a better proposal than him… I’d be suspicious. Our people would be too. Even though you worked for us last time, you actually came to us after working for those Irish half-breeds.”

She was implying that I might be working for the Irish mafia that this gang boss was trying to report. Fortunately, I hadn’t received any help from them this time.

I had asked Bavan for contact information but hadn’t used it, and I’d come this far based on Carmen’s confession and information bought from an informant I’d worked with before. So I could be confident.

“It’s different this time, don’t worry, Madam Branch Manager. The name that gang boss is about to reveal is who hired me. It seems you want revenge for your brother who died because of Carmen, but if you were going to borrow gunmen, you should have done it without spreading word that the Irish half-breeds were involved, and then prayed the responsibility wouldn’t come back to you. Isn’t that right?”

At the name Carmen, the gang boss flinched, and the noll branch manager seemed to have figured out the situation to some extent. She made a hyena-like laughing sound.

“What the… Did this bastard think we’d help him get revenge if he mentioned the Irish gang’s name? Against Carmen? Oh, this is ridiculous. Why would we go to war for you?”

I wondered how far Carmen had extended her connections—every other person seemed to know her name. It seemed almost laughable that someone who had lived like that would hope to settle down.

Unlike what the gang boss whose brother was killed by Carmen thought, not all gangs were filled with thoughts of fighting to devour all of New York. That wasn’t even possible to begin with.

The Italian nolls, who had split eastern New York in half with two Godmothers facing off, were especially like this. The Irish half-breeds also focused only on Little Eire, following The Morrígan who longed for their homeland.

Moreover, they had no reason to escalate this situation. Bavan had disposed of the body simply because she didn’t want to lose Carmen’s charm or singing talent. There was no place for revenge.

The noll branch manager was now laughing outright. She clearly felt no threat from the gang boss standing there like a child caught making absurd excuses to his parents.

“Why don’t you, Leone, manage just one or two of these gangs for us? There are too many stupid bastards like this, making street management difficult. Isaac, Isaac. If you had at least paid your tributes regularly, it might be different. Hey, tribute isn’t just money. It’s respect. It’s a long-term contract saying we protect you, and you respect us.”

The gang boss had tried to make the first move, but in a stupid way. If they couldn’t handle it alone or wanted certain revenge, they should have hired an operator, not called the nolls.

It was true that Carmen had held me back, but Carmen had only held back me alone. There were plenty of operators who were unpredictable and ruthlessly efficient.

Yet he called the nolls, and now his lack of resources was exposed. The gang that had made Carmen fear enough to leave New York looked small and shabby now that I saw them.

I hoped to handle this appropriately and move on, but the noll branch manager stroked her muzzle thoughtfully, then approached the gang boss, pushing past me. She spoke with a sly tone.

“Hey, can’t you see the difference in class between our Leone and you? That guy came here to kill you. I bet he brought a sack in his car trunk. As a noll, I could bet my tongue on it. Right? Isn’t that so? But while we can’t help you get revenge… we can protect you from him. What do you think? Hmm?”

I had planned to use the nolls’ authority to cleanly shut this down, but the branch manager beat me to it. She naturally began coaxing him as if I had been part of the original situation despite my sudden appearance.

With me suddenly barging in and his plan being ridiculed, the gang boss couldn’t make a proper choice and tried to grasp the opportunity. I jumped in too. That’s not what I wanted.

“Ah, yes. I did bring rope and waterproof sacks to threaten you with a demonstration. I was going to give you a choice: either verbally agree to let Carmen go and accept that your brother died unfortunately, or mourn your brother’s death here and ‘commit suicide’ by hanging from the warehouse beam. That’s the job Carmen gave me. Just to make you let her go. Why would I actually kill you and escalate the situation?”

As long as he didn’t get under the protection of the Italian nolls, I could come back and deal with him anytime. If it was just this much, it would be easier than getting cookies out of a cupboard. So I needed to persuade him.

It was quite funny—saying I wouldn’t kill to kill, and threatening to kill while knowing I wouldn’t kill. We each had our purposes. Purposes that clashed. It’s always like that.

But this noll branch manager, who had only seen me once at that dinner, knew me better than I thought. She whispered in a growling, beast-like voice.

“That may be true today. Today. Our Leone is quite clean with his work. I heard he even prevented a war between the Irish half-breeds and us last time. But… would such an operator really just threaten you and leave? A thug who was seeking backing when he arrived? I wouldn’t bet on a coin toss if I were you. After all, you were prepared to hand over your business for your brother’s sake, right? We welcome such family devotion.”

That’s one hell of a persuasion. They will now seek protection from the nolls, even if it means giving up all their money-making avenues. That means Carmen needs to flee. I’ve bought time, but that’s all I’ve done.

The job was successful again, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied. The branch manager knew how to use the authority given to me by the nolls just as much as I knew how to use it. She knew how to force a sale through fear.

Was my pride hurt? No, that’s not it. I could handle the job with this result anyway. It was just the thought of facing more situations like this in the future that gave me a headache.