"I've graduated ten universities of hard knocks…a racketeer is a fellow who tries to get power at the expense of entrenched power." ~ Frank Costello
I spent most of the remaining night partying it up in Junior's club. I drank for free, shot some pool and retold the story of how I risked getting shot to save O-Ushi. I must have told that story a dozen different times that night, I got sick of it. But as the night got late I was finally able to get a ride back to my apartment to sleep.
I woke up hours later and retrieved the burner scroll from its hiding place and called Ozpin. He picked up and I went straight to telling him everything I could about that night. I told him about the hit I had survived, I told him about the conversation O-Ushi had with Junior risking war with the Atleasians and I finally explained to him the most important part, that O-Ushi was going to be making me an associate.
"That's excellent news Mr. Arc," he said to me, "this puts you in the perfect position to learn about the dust robberies," he explained to me, "I expect you to show initiative in your new job, learn what you can and make everyone see that you're ambitious to move up and earn for Junior."
"Will do," I assured him, pouring myself a cup of coffee, "associates are usually the ones handling the real work so I'm sure that I can push my way into the dust racket, if it's half as bad as the news is saying it must be a booming business at the moment."
"Business?" Ozpin said, "you almost sound like a criminal calling it as such."
"I've picked up a few habits trying to blend," I admitted grabbing a pack of cigarettes and shaking one out to go with my morning coffee. "I can't very well pretend to be one of these people if I don't talk like them."
"That's very good, that will aid you well in your mission," he told me.
"I hope so," I answered, taking my first sweet drag of the morning. "If you don't mind I have a few questions, I was hoping that you might be able to fill in a couple blanks."
"Certainly Mr. Arc," he said.
"Everyone seems to be tying the start of Junior's problems to a blonde girl coming in and wrecking his club," I explained to him, "it seems Junior lost a lot of face with that particular incident. I asked around last night after O-Ushi gave me the job and the twins explained that some huntress girl came in and smashed the place up after demanding some information from Junior. If it was a huntress I was thinking you might know a thing or two about this."
"Ah yes," Ozpin said, "that was the work of Miss Xaio Long."
Yang? She wasn't a huntress but a huntress in training. I had been wondering just how much damage one woman could do to Junior in his own club full of wiseguys but hearing her name it suddenly made a lot more sense. Yang was a powerhouse to say the least.
"Did you orchestrate that?" I asked him, voicing a suspicion that I had carried since hearing that a huntress had been involved.
"Miss Xiao Long was acting on her own I'm afraid," he told me, "though I will admit that I pulled a few strings to keep her from any legal repercussions, but men like Junior are always happy to keep the law at a distance so it was hardly difficult."
"I see. O-Ushi should be picking me up soon so I'll talk to you later," I hung up the phone and thought about everything.
The conversation had left me with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. I knew that I shouldn't have been opposed, Junior was a crime boss after all so a little trouble coming his way was to be expected, deserved even. But Ozpin pulling strings to keep Yang out of trouble didn't sit right with me, if legal action was going to be troublesome for Junior then I thought that would be exactly what Ozpin might want. It could help expose parts of his operation. Sure Yang might get burned a bit for it but she wasn't exactly an innocent party either.
But what's more that little incident seemed to be a spark that ignited a spreading flame. If the Atleasians were looking at it as an opportunity to make a move against Junior and start a war then it seemed plenty of people were going to get hurt, and not just Junior's gangsters, all his neighborhoods could be in the crossfire. What's more if it did lead to a war then someone would have to be left standing, and so far the idea of those drug pushing Atleasians being left the victors was an unappetizing thought.
But I supposed that the big picture was better left for Ozpin to consider. I just needed to keep getting friendly with Junior's clan and keep my ear to the ground about any dust robberies. Sticking my nose where it didn't belong seemed to be a bad idea so I just shrugged off my worries and tried to focus on the task in front of me.
By the time I finished my morning coffee and cigarette my regular phone buzzed on the counter with a text from O-Ushi telling me to come downstairs. I grabbed my jacket and gun and came right down. I stepped into the laundromat to see O-Ushi talking to my landlord Hana who looked more than pleased to have her visiting her quaint little business.
"Mr. Arc," Hana said, turning to look at me, "you never mentioned that you worked for Miss O-Ushi."
I shrugged to her. "I was just a cab driver," I said, "no big deal."
"Oh but it is!" Hana said bowing to me, "if I had known I would have done more to make you feel welcome here!"
I smiled, "you're cooking has been more than welcoming," I assured her, bowing in return.
Hana grinned, "He is a good boy," she said looking to O-Ushi, "he minds his manners."
O-Usagi nodded in agreement, "And he's brave to boot. Don't worry Hana I'll take good care of him. Say hi to the grandkids for me," O-Ushi said, turning for the door, ''Come on Jaune, we got a long day ahead of us."
I followed her outside where her car was waiting. One look inside showed that thankfully the blood had been thoroughly cleaned since last night. I got into the passenger seat and buckled up. "How's the shoulder?" I asked her a little surprised that she looked so normal despite being shot just last night.
"Sore," she said bitterly, "but my aura came and closed up the tunnel I had running through it, but it still hurts when I move."
I nodded pleased to see that despite her injury she was doing well. "How do you know Hana so well?" I asked her as we rolled through the neighborhood.
"She does work for us," she explained to me, "that laundromat helps us launder our money. Which means you'll be making collections there every week, she should have several thousand lien for us, we'll go over the specifics later."
"So what?" I asked, "my job is to go around picking up money for you?"
"More or less," she explained, "every business has a different day of the week you should collect on, some help clean our money, most pay protection, and others… well let's just say we're silent investors collecting our returns."
"How am I supposed to know what to collect from who?" I asked her.
"We'll teach you," she said looking over at me, "but don't you ever write any of this down! We'll see that you memorize what you need to know but we'd rather you forget and miss a payment than have the wrong people get ahold of our notes and use it as evidence, understand?"
I nodded to her as I looked outside at the now familiar streets of Little Mistral, "So collections, what else?"
"Help out around the neighborhood, most of the businesses around here we've either invested in or pay us for protection. If anyone is causing trouble, knock some sense into them, and if they need help then give it to them, we can't launder money or collect on our investments if the businesses aren't earning so make sure they keep earning." She explained to me.
"And if the businesses don't want to cough up the lien for protection then what?" I asked her, "Do I show them why they need protection?"
He shook her head and laughed a little at me. "That shouldn't happen kid," she told me, "we've been in this neighborhood for a long time, the people here know that our protection is within their best interests, otherwise any two bit crook can rob them."
I nodded feeling a little relieved that I wasn't expected to intimidate store owners or anything like that. With the 24k Dragons picking fights I knew that I was probably going to have to get my hands dirty protecting the local businesses but I could live with that.
"But seriously, in the hypothetical situation where they don't want to pay, or they get behind on their payments what should I do?" I asked her hoping that it didn't come to that.
"We're running a business not a charity," she explained to me, "plenty of our people fall on hard times and get behind on the bills, you can extend their loan with interest, these places are like money faucets there's no need to turn them off, but if they take too long eventually you need to collect."
"I see," I said, feeling nauseous.
"It's not pretty kid, believe me," she said sympathetically, "but it's business, and these people know what they're getting into when they accept our lien, it isn't that different from a bank. If you foreclose on a loan the bank will repossess, we're not any different."
"But this is your neighborhood, your own people," I said, not thinking about who I was talking to and the fact that I should have just nodded along instead of expressing doubts for the job.
O-Ushi sighed, "If you feel sorry for someone you can forgive the debt," she explained to me, "I've done that a couple of times and it helps keep a good relationship in the neighborhood, but you settle it from your own pocket, me and Junior still get our cut, so if you want to be charitable fine, but you do it on your own dime."
"That's… comforting."
"Just don't let everyone pull at your heart strings, I had to learn that the hard way. Some people will try whatever they can to get out of paying so practice your generosity wisely. If some idiot took our money for his store and lost it all gambling you say, Fuck you, pay me! Otherwise every other jerk will think they can take advantage of us. Understood?."
"Understood," I said, feeling that I was starting to get a grip on what my job would be exactly.
"Say it for me kid," she said looking over at me.
"Say what?" I asked stupidly.
"What do you say if a bum tries to not pay you?" she asked me.
"Fuck you, pay me!" I said.
"The horse I bet on at the track broke its leg right out the gate," she said pressing the issue.
"Fuck you, pay me!"
"The health inspector shut my restaurant down, I had no idea there were rats in the pantry," She continued pressing me.
"Fuck you, pay me!" I shouted at her.
"No kid," she laughed, "we bribe the health inspector and charge the restaurant owner for the trouble, but I like your energy you're sounding like a wiseguy already. Now let's get you dressed like one."
I looked outside and saw that we had left Little Mistral behind and were driving through the downtown area. Passing by various stores with price ranges I had would have never been able to afford. They showed the latest fashions, I spotted the very jewelry store that Neo had robbed, it was still in business apparently with a whole bunch of new merchandise filling the window. "I'm buying a suit?" I asked her, even with the substantial stash of cash I had accumulated these stores would bankrupt me.
"Don't insult me kid," she said, "you fucking saved my life, I'm paying for everything today."
"I'm just grateful for the job," I told her, feeling more than a little overwhelmed that she was going to be dropping that kind of money on me.
"I didn't give you the job because you saved my life Jaune, I gave you the job because you got the stones for it," she explained, "but a job is a job, not a favor and certainly no way to pay you back for what you did."
She pulled the car to the curb next to the store and we got out. The store sign read Vinnie's Threads, it was small and quaint, it didn't sport any big flashy windows showing the merchandise, just a simple red painted shop with a faceless man in a suit with a bowler hat and cane on the door.
"Not that I mind wearing a suit, but is it really wise for all wiseguys to wear them?" I asked her, closing the car door, "I mean, I can practically spot a wiseguy a mile away because of their dress code."
O-Ushi chuckled, "Maybe so kid," she said, "If those crooks people call politicians can wear suits, then so can we. The people around the neighborhood need to see who you are and know who you work for."
"But won't the cops know who I work for?" I asked her.
"So what if they do? Let them see your fancy threads and know how you paid for them. Wearing a suit isn't a crime, I know some lawyers that'd love to hear that excuse brought up in court, I can almost see it right now, "I'm wearing a suit officer, why don't you arrest me?" they'd have a field day with that. And believe me, some badges knowing who you work for isn't always a bad thing."
That made sense, it was like bragging to everyone that you worked for Junior's clan. Clean cops had to deal with seeing how much richer you were for flaunting the law, while the dirty ones saw walking opportunities.
We opened the door and stepped inside the store. A middle aged man turned his head from behind a counter and smiled brightly.
"O-Ushi!" He greeted throwing his hands up and approaching her to lay a friendly kiss on both her cheeks.
"Marcello!" O-Ushi greeted him patting his shoulders. "How are you, how are your children."
"Bah!" Marcello said disfavorably, "my sons are useless, thanks the gods for my daughters." He looked over at me and studied me up and down. "I take it you're not here to shop for yourself."
O-Ushi nodded to him, "Kid needs a whole new wardrobe, it's all on me, though I recently had one of your suits unfortunately ruined, so I'll take another. You know my sizes."
"Very well," He said moving to me and taking my hand, "I am Marcello Gentilli, it is a pleasure to meet you Mr..."
"Arc," I told him shaking his hand, "Jaune Arc, I thought the sign outside said Vinnie's?"
"Named for my father, this was his shop." He explained to me.
"He's the best in the city," O-Ushi told me and turned to Marcello "get him sized up for a dozen with all the fixings."
I felt dizzy, "a dozen!?"
O-Ushi grinned, "get used to picking up dry cleaning kid," she said, "we'll get some other threads for you to wear in the meantime, Marcello's art takes time."
My knees were weak. Almost everything I could see in the shop was bank breaking, these jackets alone were worth hundreds of lien, I could hardly imagine what a tailor made one would have cost me.
"All the fixings?" Marcello said, raising an eyebrow at her.
"The kid saved my life," O-Ushi told him.
Marcello grinned like a cat that caught the canary, "then right this way," he said, taking me by the shoulder and leading me to the back. He took to a back room and started measuring me as I looked on the wall at the various pictures of people that came into the story smiling and shaking hands with either Marcello or who I guessed was his father. I looked at a picture of Marcello's father shaking hands with "Lucky" Luca Torchwick according to the plaque beneath the picture. And right next to it was a picture of Marcello standing between a younger Junior and Roman Torchwick grinning proudly with his hands on both their shoulders.
Now, I've never really been a fashionably conscious person. Getting thoroughly sized up I found myself being paraded with all sorts of different fabrics and patterns and colors. I had never been fitted for a suit, I mean I wore cheap ones growing up and going to funerals and weddings and other formal occasions but that was just stuff from the thrift store.
I had to choose fabrics for shirts, vests, pants, jacket linings, single breasted or double breasted, buttons, fucking buttons. And it didn't end there, after we got the basics down for my tailored suits we chose the more casual ones. I got everything from charcoal black to navy blue. I got belts, cufflinks, pocket squares, watches, ties. I didn't even know how to tie a fucking tie and I suddenly had more of them than I had pairs of pants. Hats, trilby, fedoras, ivy, I got them all.
And as I discovered, all the fixing included kevlar linings sewn between the layers. This wasn't just a fashion statement for wiseguys, it was armor.
O-Ushi didn't care about the cost, if I looked at something more than five seconds she added it to the list. She called up one of her boys to take all it to my place and we left Vinnie's with me wearing a casual black two piece with a red shirt like so many of Junior's wiseguys liked to wear. I had a gold watch on my wrist, a thin gold chain around my neck. I used to think bling like that was ridiculous and here I suddenly was wearing it like I was some kind of big shot.
"Hungry?" O-Ushi asked me once we had finished with that insane shopping spree.
"Famished," I answered, I hadn't even eaten that day, my breakfast had been black coffee and a cigarette.
"Good, let's get a steak," she said, getting back in the car and driving me to his place called Georgetti's and got us a table like it was a normal diner. She didn't need a reservation here, they knew her and for people like her there was always a table available.
"So Jaune, what do you know about the neighborhood?" she asked me as I quelled my hunger with bread rolls.
"What do you mean?" I asked her, trying to swallow as I applied butter to the next roll.
"I mean how much do you know about Little Mistral's history?" She explained.
"I know a little," I said, "plenty of VIPs I drove around liked to talk about the old days, I heard it all began with Mountain Glenn. But why is that important?"
"It's important because our history defines us," she said looking into my eyes, "it brought us to where we are today and because a lot of our current troubles could have been avoided if people had bothered to learn from it."
"Then teach me," I said to her understanding by her tone that indeed it was important to her, I felt like Professor Oobleck would be nodding in agreement with her little speech if he was sitting with us.
She picked up her glass of wine and took a sip before speaking. "Mountain Glenn is just the tip of the iceberg kid, but those guys were kind of right telling you that's where it began, you know much about Mountain Glenn?"
"No, not really," I told her, my knowledge of history was garbage.
"It was a project to expand Vale, the Kingdom used tunnels to help transport workers to build the city and Little Mistral was founded because Mistrali labor was cheap so there was a flood of immigrants wanting a job, tons of clans took advantage of the new arrivals, there was business to be had there especially since the workers had vices. The clans had all sorts of rackets with booze, and smoke and pussy and just about everything else you could think of. The local Vale gangs made a profit too, they had their hands deep in a lot of the worker unions building the tunnels and cities. It was such a booming racket that a lot of the clans and families set up shop there. A new booming city full of construction workers, unions to jack, fresh businesses to set up shop, workers that wanted to drink or gamble or whore away their paychecks. It was a fresh new city that had a booming economy, and people like us saw that there was plenty of profit to be had."
I washed down a bread roll with my wine. "These stories don't usually have happy endings," I said to her, "I'm guessing something happened to ruin it all."
"Damn right," O-Ushi said to me, "the grimm happened, Mountain Glenn didn't exactly have any of the natural barriers we take for granted here in Vale. Attacks became frequent, at first it was fine, grimm were to be expected, hell some government officials even paid people like us to help provide security."
"Wait… the Vale Council paid for our kind of protection?" I asked, finding the idea that even back then the government would be getting into bed with a bunch of gangsters a little ridiculous.
O-Ushi grinned at me amused, "don't be surprised kid, huntsmen are few and expensive and we had the manpower at the time to help, they even gave us the guns to do it. The Vale council wanted this project to succeed so if that meant arming a bunch of gangs to fight grimm then so be it. The guys like us that did it were certainly happy, they got a bunch of cash and iron for the trouble, and the city was full of business, letting it fall to the grimm was not in anybody's interest. But it wasn't enough, the grimm attacks became worse and worse until the the fucking town was being overrun. It wasn't enough, the Vale council deployed some huntsmen and the military but it was a token force at best. They were worried that the grimm would try attacking Vale so they held back most of their troops and their huntsmen while Mountain Glenn retreated underground and slowly tried evacuating. Eventually the grimm broke into the underground tunnels and the Vale Council elected to seal off the tunnels, everyone that hadn't evacuated was either buried alive or slaughtered by the grimm."
"Fuck that's horrible," I said trying to imagine being in a crowded dark tunnel with hoards of grimm.
She nodded before taking a big gulp of her wine. "Damn right it was, the Vale Council abandoned everyone that day."
I chewed on that for a minute and wished that if Oobleck had ever talked about that in his class that I had listened. I had no doubt that he would have found it relevant that our government's incompetence lost an entire city and then left its people to die.
Thankfully our steaks arrived and the smell of the seared meat and twice baked potato cleared my mind for a minute as I cut into a perfectly cooked medium rare ribeye. "So what then? I'm guessing there's more to this story." I said after taking my first bite of my sinfully delicious steak.
"What was next was that Vale was flooded with refugees, the flood of immigrants was one thing but now they had a ton of people who had no jobs and had lost their homes," she explained to me, "the Vale council was already embarrassed with the situation and had lost a mountain of lien trying to build their new city. They practically dumped them into the ghettos, the city officials sent some food and rations but it wasn't enough. They wanted to forget about the refugees, they seemed to hope that over time they'd just fade away."
I listened as I sliced into my bloody steak thinking about all of it. "I heard a little bit about that already, Little Mistral was particularly packed in that time, it's when your Clan came to power."
"It's our Clan," O-Ushi corrected me pointing her steak knife in my direction.
"Sorry," I said, "I'm new to this, and can I call myself a member of the Clan as only an associate?"
"Sure you can," she explained, "we're a business, you might not be on the board of directors like I am, but you're still an employee. You're like an accountant, you might not sit in at our meetings but you're certainly a part of our corporate machine."
"Ok I get it, our Clan started out then, when Little Mistral and Vale were overrun with refugees. What happened then?" I asked, taking a sip of wine to wash down the bites of rib eye I had consumed.
"With an influx of refugees poor and abandoned and a substantial number of them in the business they did what they did best. They got to work. Thievery was at an all time high so they set up protection rackets, the workers unions were jacked, gambling started up, a fucking crime wave swept the county like never before. It was a golden age of business."
"Who was behind it?" I asked her.
"Three people, "Papa" Hei Xiong,"Sharp" Sarah Rothstein, and "Lucky" Luca Torchwick. The three of them all started out in Vale and then tried to make something more of themselves in Mountain Glenn, but after losing all of their investments and having their own people live like rats they formed an alliance. Hei as you probably guessed ran a Mistrali Clan, our Clan the Kuroi Kuma. Pearl ran a faunus gang and Luca came from an old Vale family and he tried forming his own in Mountain Glenn. They called it the Triumvirate, the three of them set their sights on the competition and absorbed or pushed out the opposition."
"How'd they do it?" I asked her.
"Brains, brawn, and trust," O-Ushi answered me, "they worked together and they had their priorities straight while the competition was too busy fighting each other to do anything about it, in a couple of years the city was theirs and they divided it up. They poured their money into the neighborhood, they bribed public officials and bankers to stop redlining their parts of the city. They took care of their people! I was the good old days."
"So why'd it end?" I asked her.
"Time passes," she explained sadly grabbing the wine bottle to top off both our glasses, "things happen, "Lucky" Luca's luck ran out and he was imprisoned for tax evasion."
"Tax evasion?" I asked, finding the idea funny.
"That's one lesson to take away from this kid," she said, "don't you ever think you're too good to fuck up, Luca Torchwick was smart and tough, no one was able to make any serious charges stick until they opened his books."
"So Luca getting thrown behind bars was what ruined it?" I asked her.
"That was where the trouble started, Luca was the head of the Triumvirate, he had the most money and power and thus called a lot of the shots. He advised what he could from prison but his eldest son Tony was not as smart or wise as his old man. Then the Atlesians came to town and muscled in on the Fanus, cornering the drug trade they used to control."
That was news to me, "they used to deal that shit before the Atlesians did?"
"That was the arrangement," she confirmed, "most thought that they were animals anyways so let them sell their souls."
"How progressive," I deadpanned, unable to avoid voicing my displeasure in her words.
O-Ushi chuckled at my snark, "it's history kid, you don't have to like it, that's not the point. Before Luca was behind bars the Triumvirate would have stood together against an enemy, but Tony Torchwick was a greedy little shit, he tried taking advantage of the play the Atlesians were making to let both sides fight and lose so he could take it all, it was a gamble that cost a lot, the Fanus gangs got shattered and the Atlesians were not interested in following rules or alliances, after that things snowballed. Tony stepped down and his younger brother Roman inherited the rest and things haven't been the same since."
"What about "Papa" Hei Xiong?" I asked, wanting to know how he turned out.
"He retired and left everything to Junior," she explained, "Roman and him go way back, if it wasn't for the two of them things could have fallen apart, because of them we still have strong ties to the Torchwick families."
"But if that's the case couldn't Junior and Roman take on the Atlesians together?" I asked her.
She shook her head, "it's not that simple Jaune," she explained, "Junior and Torchwick might be thick as thieves but they built everything on a code of honor, they got cops and politicians in their pockets, they got judges on their payroll. But the Atlesians were fucking diffrent, when they went to war with the fanus everyone was a target, they didn't give two fucks who was in the crossfire and it turned into a media circus. Judges and politicians can't look the other way when there's a bombing on the six o'clock news. and when cops get killed, even dirty cops, they come down hard. What's more the Atlesians are in bed with a number of cartels in Vacuo, and they don't want to see their buyers go out the window, they'd get involved if they had too."
"But you said it yourself, if we let them push us around we already lost," I said, remembering her words to Junior last night after I recalled the events of the shooting.
"I did say that," she agreed, "and I meant every word, but I want to strike back quietly, I want to send a message not start a war. War is bad for business, plain and simple. And right now things are in the works, don't concern yourself with that it's above your pay grade. Did my story teach you anything?"
"I think so," I explained, "don't get too greedy, but more importantly don't forget your friends and allies, they're what made the Triumvirate work, and Tony Torchwick trying to push his ally out is what ruined everything."
She nodded approvingly and picked up her wine glass. "Very good, I knew you were a smart kid. We're a clan, and we only survive by sticking together. Without each other we're nothing, without our friends we're weak. Don't you ever forget that."
"I won't" I assured her, meaning it.
Our steaks were gone by that point and O-Ushi poured the last bit of wine into both our glasses. The waiters took away our plates and we ordered dessert. "Can I ask you a question?" I said before I started on my tiramisu.
"That's what today is all about," she said to me.
"Last night," I began reading her face to see if I was encroaching on a forbidden topic, "Junior said three years ago there was an agreement. What was it? What changed?"
"The Prince changed," she said bitterly.
"Who is he?" I asked, feeling that it only created more questions.
"His real name is Nicky, we call him the "The Prince" because his old man is some hotshot in Atlas, apparently he despises that nickname. Three years ago this guy Andrey was calling the shots for the local Atlesians. He was someone you didn't want to fuck with sure. But he had a good head on his shoulders and he didn't lose his temper. For a little while it actually seemed that things were going to be copasetic with him around. Then the Prince popped him off and anyone that had a problem with it. The kid is a hot head, and ever since he came to town he's been trying to start shit."
"I see, so he's the one we can thank for the 24k Dragons giving us trouble," I observed.
"More or less," O-Ushi agreed, "her certainly made a strong pitch to a lot of the street gangs about dealing his narcotics, the Dragons are just one that decided that profits meant more than loyalty."
We finished our dessert and stepped out back into the streets of Vale. "What now?" I asked her, wondering if she had planned another long shopping spree after lunch.
"Now we get you working," she told me with a grin, "you're gonna be my personal bagman kid, so let's get you doing your pickups."