Chapter 10
Fumantes: “Do you have the package?”
I was eavesdropping on the deal between Meredith (Fumantes) and Latens, her mafia contact, from behind the comfortable wall of invisibility. I knew that as long as I kept myself, Aduro, offline, they’d never know I was watching them cement their terms and conditions. I loved watching deals go down without people knowing. It was just so empowering.
Latens: “Do you have the money?”
Fumantes: “Yes. And you?”
Latens: “Yes. Tomorrow we’ll meet at 21:00 at Park Sylvia.”
Park Sylvia was a wooded, unkempt park on the bad side of the city, right in the middle of mafia territory. Normal law-abiding citizens wouldn’t go to that park during the day, much less at night. The area was so dangerous, in fact, that even the police wouldn’t patrol it.
Fumantes: “No. We meet in front of Custodela at 20:30.”
Custodela was a very popular nightclub on the street that separated the good side of town from the bad. Everyone who was anyone or wanted to be someone went there including mob bosses, celebrities, wannabe celebrities, and the petty bourgeoisie.
Because it was so popular, there was always a line wrapped around the block which made newcomers think they were close to getting in because the end of the line started at the entrance. In reality they had to go all around the quite large block to get in, which wasn’t likely to happen during the course of the night.
(For those who’ve never seen a line literally go around a block and end where it had begun, it is quite a sight to behold. Along the three sides of the building which don’t have entrances, there are venders circling like hawks, selling everything from food and drink to a person who would willingly stand in line for you while you used a restroom which was a couple blocks away.
If you weren’t willing to pay for the person to stand in line for you, instead depending on your friends to let you back in, the restroom visit, which would have been complementary, instead cost you seven dollars. Don’t want to pay the seven dollars? Well then you can walk to the next closest restroom which was seven blocks away and only pay three dollars, but it wasn’t nearly as nice and you’d have to make your way though a couple dark allies to get there.
In addition to these venders and the opportunistic restrooms, the club itself projected images of what was happening inside the club for those outside waiting in line. But that’s all they were, images of men and women dancing and having a great time. If you wanted to actually hear the music being played, for a small fee you could pay to get a direct linkup to your phone, off of which you could listen to the music. That, in addition to the images, was enough to make up for not actually getting into the club itself.)
Entrance into the club was so sought after that some enterprising minds had figured out a way of making money by selling their spots to the loaded club goers. Starting at the crack of dawn, groups of entrepreneurial souls would camp out at the beginning of the line, taking up the first thirty or so spots.
When the first group of people finally showed up to get in line a few hours later (if you wanted to get in you really had to be in line by late morning at the latest), they would offer the newcomers their spots for a reasonable price. Most of the time, these people would give the spot holders the money, thus ensuring their entrance into the club that night, while the holders would move to the back of the line.
The only holdouts were the people at the very front of the line. They always waited until the club was just about to open before they sold their spots at a premium price. These spots were so prized that there were auctions for them, with the holder making more in one night than a regular person made in half a year.
As the day progressed, and they gradually moved back farther, the prices would increase and by the time the night ended, they would have their pockets full of cash for holding spots in line.
While it sounds like it could be a boring job, in practice it was quite interesting. You’re always wheeling and dealing. You’re constantly moving around, having to hustle to get the best next place in line before someone else does.
Then there are the runners who run up to the incoming club goers and encourage them to pay for a spot. These little salesmen get a cut of the business so they have extra incentive to help sell as many spots as possible.
Even with all these comings and goings, I knew the real reason Fumantes wanted to meet there. Tomorrow night the club had a huge mafia party planned.
(These mafia parties were well advertised by both the club and the mafia itself. Usually called, “Victory Parties” for the sake of propriety, everyone with any connected brain cells and knew anything about who usually frequented the Custodela knew that “Victory Parties” was just code for mafia party.
This particular party was obviously celebrating some type of recent victory the mafia had just had, and while the exact details of said victory weren’t being released, and never would, it had to be a huge victory for the type of celebration the club was advertising.
And as with every mafia party, they just made Custodela even more happening than it normally was. The same entrepreneurial souls who sold their spots in line not only got in line earlier than usual, they also doubled or tripled their normal prices for the spots they saved, depending on how many people were expected to show up.
They weren’t the only ones raising their prices. Everyone involved with the club and its surrounding businesses increased prices because they knew people would be even more desperate than usual to get in or baring that, feeling like they were part of the action via the projections and music.
If the Custodela could have arranged it, they would have had a mafia party every single week because business was so profitable. Even the minor celebrations were flocked with outrageously long lines. In fact, a couple times I wondered if they just made up a reason to celebrate in order for everyone to make a few more bucks, especially when things were a little too quiet.)
Security would be at its highest, so even if Latens had wanted to pull something, he wouldn’t have dared do it there. The security at the mafia gigs were more trigger-happy than any other security team on the planet. They were more than happy to kill one of their own who showed a gun as they were to kill a stranger. It was all the same to them.
(This trigger-happiness extended to the venders. Because businesses was so profitable on these nights in particular, there were many accounts of venders killing each other for prime spots and paying patrons. You’d have thought all this death and mayhem would discourage the average partygoer from going to Custodela during these parties, but somehow, they seemed to think that all the violence and death was exciting and cool, thus making the club even more popular. I guess some people just had weird taste in entertainment, but for me, seeing people kill each other was not the way I wanted to spend a night out.)
When Latens hadn’t answered after a minute or two, Fumantes said, “Or no deal.”
Latens: “Fine. Custodela at 20:30. Don’t be late.”
Fumantes: “Just don’t forget the merchandise.”
Fumantes got off and Atrox, Latens’ mafia coworker, came on as if he’d been watching the entire conversation, just like I had.
Atrox: “Who does she think she is, dictating when we meet?”
Latens: “She thinks she has leverage. Which she does.”
Atrox: “For now.”
Latens: “Where’s your snitch?”
Atrox: “Not snitch. Informant.”
Snitch? Oh, I know he just hadn’t called me a snitch. I turned my status from invisible to online.
Aduro: “I’ll second that motion.” I wanted to make it clear from day one to Latens that I wasn’t a snitch. Never had been and never would be. I was just an informant with an interest in his deal with Meredith.
Latens: “Who are you?”
Aduro: “The person who’s going to give you enough information to get rid of our little friend.”
Atrox: “What
is her real name?”
I thought for a second on the best way to give him the information. I could just put her name in the chat, but then anyone who was lurking in the background would know who we were talking about, including Meredith. And if we tipped her off, she would run off before the exchange went down.
No, I needed to provide the information in a smarter way.
Aduro: “Give me an email address and I’ll send you the information.”
Latens: “Why not provide us with the information now? Don’t you have it?”
Aduro: “I do, but you’ll only get it if I get an address.”
Atrox: “[email protected]. Send the name there.”
I pulled open my alternate email account, which was completely untraceable just like the chat room I’d been using to talk to Atrox and Latens, and was one I only used on special occasions, and I typed in two magic words: Meredith Oblinger.
I sent the email and went back to the chat room.
Aduro: “You get it?”
Atrox was gone for a few seconds before he said, “That’s her name?”
Aduro: “Yes. But don’t bother trying to find her address. It won’t show up.”
Latens: “How can we trust you?”
Aduro: “How can I trust you? You could have her wacked right after your meeting, taking the jewels and the cash.”
Atrox: “We won’t do that. When do we get her address?” Why weren’t they going to just kill her for everything? I mean, if I was in their position, it would have been very tempting.
Aduro: “Why not?”
Latens: “Use common sense. Nobody would trust us if we worked that way. We have a reputation which must be upheld at all costs. Now, when do we get her address?”
I guess his answer made sense, but I still worried that they’d grab her before I had the chance of getting at those jewels.
Aduro: “I’ll email you the information an hour after the drop.” By then she should have hidden the jewels wherever she was going to keep them because I didn’t believe she’d keep them in her attic apartment. Not one bit.
Atrox: “Why must we wait?”
Aduro: “I want to make sure nothing goes wrong before sending you the info.” If they were too stupid to figure out that I wanted a nice lead time, then that was all on them.
Aduro: “Though I do suggest that you pick her up someplace else. Her home is not ideal for kidnappings. It’ll be noticed.”
Atrox: “Noted.”
Latens: “Don’t double cross us.” And with that fun warning, Atrox and Latens signed off, leaving me alone in the chat room.
I went back to my email and wrote a delayed email for tomorrow night. It would send an hour after I pushed a button on my phone. That way, if the drop really didn’t happen until 22:30, it’d wait until 23:30 to send it to Atrox.
Inside the email I put her dorm number, that she lived in the attic, and how exactly to get to the attic. I also added a request to be informed when she was safely in custody and off planet. I wanted to know the minute I could start celebrating my successful extraction of the annoyance.
I left out the part that the dorm she went through was empty. Why give out more information than was necessary?
When I’d completed everything necessary for tomorrow, I went back to refining my search parameters to find the POR aka the Planet of Riches. I knew that eventually I’d have to be down to a workable amount of planets but the amount of work necessary to do that was becoming obnoxiously long.
By now, my search parameters ranged to a couple hundred different items and took about five hours to get through every planet and I was still only down to 75 vigintillion planets. I was making some headway, not enough to make me happy. I needed to come up with a plan to narrow down my possibilities faster.
How was I going to do that?
Planet Secrets Page 10
