"Once in the racket you're always in it." ~ Al Capone
After that O-Ushi drove me back to her office and I got a good look at the kind of work I'd be doing. She pointed out which businesses I'd be collecting from and what's more she taught me a code so that if I needed specifics I could call her up.
People in this line of work almost never openly discuss their business on the phone. Too many wiseguys had ended up behind bars because their scrolls were bugged, so if you did talk business on your scroll you used a code. She would sometimes call me and say something like, "go over to Asha's Fish Market, pick me up a tuna steak," that mean she wanted me to collect a thousand Lien from Asha's Fish Market, it was simple but it was hard for any government agents listening to use that as evidence. Personally I'm pretty sure that no criminal investigator ever listened to a word I said over my scroll but a little paranoia is healthy in this line of work.
The rest of the day I borrowed a car and went around the neighborhood making collections. Mostly from businesses like restaurants, shops, strip clubs, and it was easy. I just walked in, came to the front and told the owner that O-Ushi says hi and I'd walk out with the cash. Some even threw in a free meal or drink or something just to show that relations were good.
I can honestly say that in my entire time working for O-Ushi I never once had to threaten a business owner or hurt them for money. As O-Ushi tried telling me the roots "Papa" Hei Xiong had set in Little Mistral ran deep. This was normal for the people here, and it ran even farther back than the clan, this was also the norm for a lot of these people back in Mistral where for many of them the line between legal and illegal is blurred.
Honestly the hardest part about all of this was that I was carrying around a bunch of envelopes stuffed with cash. When you have that kind of dough on you it's almost impossible to stay calm. I never kept it in the car and always made sure that it stayed on my person because if I lost it it was my ass.
After a few days of going to businesses I started to get familiar with a lot of the other business partners O-Ushi had. Bookies, fences, con artists, her many many money launderers. These people were criminals but they weren't a part of the Clan, this was more like outsourcing. Petty hoods that gave a cut of their earnings to operate on O-Ushi's neighborhood. These guys could sometimes be tough customers but for the most part they also coughed up the cash easy. For the most part these were the guys that tried to get out of paying with simple excuses, but as O-Ushi had taught me to say, "fuck you, pay me!"
And usually they did. When they didn't pay me I usually made them agree to pay me next week with interest, and I usually came back with Toshi or other fellow associates so they knew that things could get ugly. It never failed, they all knew that raising their hands to us would mean that the rest of the Clan would send them to the doctor and they'd never be able to work safely in Little Mistral again, bringing backup was a good way to remind them of that.
I was making more money doing this than I was driving cabs, but I wasn't exactly rolling in cash either. I was certainly bringing in more than an average guy working forty hours a week in a dead end job but it wasn't anything impressive. Working for the Clan certainly paid but if anyone wanted to make real money they had to earn it for the clan.
About a week into my job working as a bagman Toshi approached me at a bar and gave me an offer to buy into a racket he was starting. Bootleg dvds, he knew some guys who had all the stuff lined up and I accepted giving him the money so they could set up an operation in the back of a cafe.
We had to clear it with both Tonen and O-Ushi. Whenever you want to start a business in the Clan be it legal or illegal you have to clear it with the bosses. And since Tonen was Toshi's boss and O-Ushi was mine the two of them needed to work out some details. The main thing that O-Ushi and Tonen did as underbosses was ensure that nobody stepped on each other's toes doing business, doing anything without their blessing was a way to wind up in trouble and I wasn't in any rush to get myself in trouble with these people.
They saw no problem with our mutual business venture and soon enough Toshi and I were getting a van full of the supplies me needed. We drove down to the docks where a group of Vale wiseguys were offloading some stolen goods. Toshi even introduced me to a few of them, they were Roman's boys who ran a racket of offloading smuggled and stolen goods and it seemed that they had just what we needed. We got stacks of desktops and blank dvds that they had been wanting to offload.
Within another week we had gotten a couple of tech savvy kids working in the back of the cafe pirating movies that we sold to a lot of local shops and street vendors. Over time we expanded into music and video games too, I was unofficially a partner in a business. And now and then I occasionally gave out small loans to the businesses I collected from.
Hana for example had a couple of her washing machines break down that I paid to replace getting a sizable cut for awhile as she paid me back. A lot of the Clan members that had been in the life longer owned businesses like bars or clubs but I was a long way from having that much lien.
Most of my business ventures were small and illegal and I was usually only an investor back then. I bought into this little clothing store across the street from Hana's that made counterfeit designer clothes and handbags, these street dealers that sold fake jewelry to tourists coming to Little Mistral. Back then I wasn't completely comfortable with all of this, I wasn't exactly a fan of ripping people off but I was supposed to get in deep with the Clan. And that meant getting deep into their business. Pirating movies and music was at least palpable. I'm not a saint, even I illegally downloaded some of Weiss Schnee's albums back in the day. It wasn't like she needed the ten extra lien, right?
Living in that little apartment above Hana's laundromat and being regularly treated to her home cooking my expenses were thankfully low so I had a fair amount of cash to throw around. And I threw it back into the neighborhood, investing in whatever I could and getting my cut back with interest.
But my work wasn't just handing money with occasional leg work.
Two weeks after O-Ushi treated me to that shopping spree I got a call. I had just picked up a few of my tailored suits from Marcello and was enjoying some reheated stir fry when my scroll buzzed on the counter.
Come over to Junior's Club, wear something casual.
I read the text and wondered what she could want suddenly. Since it was the club I decided that casual should be black pants, a black button up and an ivy cap and black blazer. I called a cab and headed right over to the club.
Walking in it seemed like an average night in Junior's club. The music had a nice rhythmic beat and people were moving to it on the dance floor. I didn't see O-Ushi so I just texted her that I was gonna be at the bar.
Approaching the bar I caught sight of pink and brown hair. "Hey Neo." I greeted moving to see her drinking what looked like a White Atlesian. I asked the bartender for a gin and tonic.
She turned her exotically colored eyes in my direction and nodded at me in greeting giving me a friendly smile.
"What brings you here tonight?" I asked her casually, trying to make conversation while I waited for O-Ushi to get back to me and tell me whatever she wanted.
She picked her scroll up off the bar and typed out her response. Roman is having a sit down with Junior, the text read.
I nodded and took a sip of my gin and tonic wondering if maybe the meeting perhaps had something to do with why O-Ushi had called me.
We sat together in silence together for a long moment sipping our drinks. I wanted to think of something to say to her, some kind of ice breaker so I could actually have a real conversation with her, but I had nothing.
Getting familiar with one of Roman's better thieves seemed to be a good way to learn about the dust heists. At least that's what I consciously had been telling myself seeing her drinking at the bar and trying to spark up a conversation. The truth was I just wanted to talk to her, she was interesting, exotic, and so far every time I had seen her she demanded my attention with her mere presence.
Thankfully Neo was the one that decided to break the ice. She set her scroll down in front of me and I read the words she had typed.
I heard you saved your boss's life.
I chuckled nervously reading that. "Wow! Word gets around huh?" I said supposing that I shouldn't be surprised that in this life where so much business is handled from word of mouth that had reached its way into the Vale mob. "It was nothing, I just turned around and saw her on the ground and did the first thing I could think of," I explained, "it's not a big deal, people have been exaggerating, I didn't even fire my gun."
Saving a Mistrali's life is always a big deal. She typed to me.
"Oh believe me I know," I said to her scratching the back of my head, "it started with a shopping spree of suits and it's still going on, she gave me a bottle of the same single malt whiskey Junior drinks just yesterday," I explained to her, "I barely have enough room in my apartment for all these gifts." That was certainly true, I had to get a coat rack from Hana because all my suits wouldn't fit in my mesely closet.
Neo smiled and shook a little in what I was sure was the most adorable but silent laight I had ever seen.
"So if you're here with Roman, why are you down here drinking a White Atleasian?" I asked her, feeling a little more comfortable now that she had broken the silence so to speak. I watched as her fingers danced across the screen of her scroll.
He told me to have a drink and enjoy myself. So here I am.
"Why bring you if he's not gonna keep you around?" I asked her, realizing after I said it I was probably getting a little nosy. Mobsters don't like nosey. "Sorry," I stammered nervously, "I'm sure you can tell I'm all new to this. I'm still learning the life, ya know?"
She considered me for a long moment before her fingers danced across the screen again.
It's a sign of respect. Roman has me for protection but trusts Junior enough not to keep me by his side all the time.
I nodded. Respect, it meant a lot to these people. To these people not showing respect was always tantamount to a threat.
"Well, are you?" I asked her, "enjoying yourself I mean?"
Her petite shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.
"Oh, sorry," I said, a little disappointed that she didn't seem to be particularly enjoying what little conversation we were having. Then again it's not like I was offering her anything more than simple small talk.
Why are you here alone? Business? Or Pleasure? She typed out on her scroll again breaking the silence between us.
"Business," I explained to her, laughing a little nervously at the boldness of her question, "boss told me to come here and dress casually," I explained checking my scroll to see if O-Ushi had gotten back to me. She hadn't.
She shrugged again and placed her elbow on the bar resting her head in her hand before taking another sip of her White Atlesian.
I nursed my drink thinking about something we could at the very least idly talk about and keep her somewhat distracted. I didn't really know much about her and I wasn't in a position to ask her too many questions.
"Did you make a bundle off that jewelry job?" I asked her, figuring that was at least something we shared.
She smirked and looked back at me before nodding and typing out her answer.
A generous haul, if I do say so myself.
I smirked watching as she continued to type on her scroll.
Did you really keep the ring?
"Yeah," I told her, reaching into my pocket and feeling the little platinum band. It had become something like a good luck charm for me.
Why?
I shrugged, not willing to admit that I was carrying it around as a charm. "It's too hot to pawn off," I said remembering what O-Ushi had told me. "How well do you know the twins?" I asked her, trying to change the subject.
Neo raised an eyebrow at me.
"I didn't mean it like that," I said raising my hand dismissively, "How did you meet the two of them?" I asked her, trying to clarify that I wasn't trying to get any dirty details from her about the three of them.
We met on a job. Some of Junior's guys stole something from Roman. I worked to get it back while the twins were sent in to teach them a lesson. We stumbled into each other by accident.
I winced. From everything I had heard about Junior and Roman's relationship I had no doubt that the twins were ordered to show no mercy. "How long ago was this?" I idly asked her.
Four, maybe five years. I can't honestly remember.
That was a surprise to me. She was probably a similar age to me, maybe even a little younger. Imagining someone so young going on a job like that was difficult. Even the twins couldn't be more than eighteen, maybe nineteen years old. I was just now getting into the life and doing that kind of work made me nauseous to think about. But apparently they had been doing dirty work for a very long time.
"How long have you been in the life?" I asked her.
I was born into the life.
Reading the message on her scroll I tried to imagine what that could have possibly been like. How is someone born into this lifestyle? I could understand having a family member that's in the mob, but being born into it? Was she robbing kids of their lunch money? I figured I didn't want the answer to that.
"Hey Jaune!"
I heard my name shouted across the hall and turned in my stool to see O-Ushi with the twins and a half dozen other wiseguys.
"Get over here kid! We got work to do!" O-Ushi ordered me.
I looked over at Neo and tipped by cap to her, "duty calls, see you around," I said leaving my unfinished drink on the bar and hopping off my stool. Neo gave me a little wave and downed the rest of her drink to leave as well. I looked across the club to see Roman Torchwick walking towards the exit talking to Junior, it seemed their private meeting was finished.
"What's going on?" I asked O-Ushi falling into step beside her as she strutted out of the club.
O-Ushi grinned at me, "We're hitting them back," she said to me.
"What!?"
"Junior gave the word and now we're going to teach those punks in the 24k Dragons a lesson," she explained to me.
I tried to wonder what exactly that meant but I was sure that I was going to be getting my hands dirty tonight. I looked over at the twins. I looked over at Melanie and Miltia following behind. "You're a part of this?" I asked them.
"We owed O-Ushi a favor, remember?" Miltia said to me.
"Yeah, it was for kidnapping you that one night," Melanie finished before whipping around and jabbing a finger into my chest like the tip of a blade and glaring right into my eyes.
My eyes widened at her and I froze from her gaze.
"You still haven't called either of us!" Melanie said to me accusingly.
"I… uh… sorry," I stammered, "I've been busy."
"Whatever," Melanie said haughtily, rolling her eyes at me.
"She's just teasing you," Miltia explained, giggling at the exchange.
"Miltia!" Melanie protested to her, "it's no fun if you tell him! It's better to let him think I'm mad."
I laughed nervously at their shenanigans unable to completely shake away the fact that we were on our way to start trouble with the 24k Dragons. "Well how about I try making it up to the both of you later?" I suggested trying to distract myself and ease my tensions. "We can get dinner of something."
"Deal," the two of them said in unison to me.
"We'll be holding you two that," Melanie said, threateningly.
We stepped out into the night air and walked around the corner where O-Ushi and a number of others were parked. She opened the trunk of her car and reached in pulling out a short barreled shotgun and handing it to one of her boys along with a box of shells. Next she handed me a wooden baseball bat and told me to climb into the backseat.
I did just that. I rested the club between my knees as I got into the back seat. Mel and Mil got in too so I settled into the center between them watching the guy sitting in the front seat load shells into a shotgun.
I knew that sooner or later I was probably going to have to get my hands dirty. It was an inevitability I understood, Ozpin had told me that I needed to do what I had to to earn the trust of these people. But as O-Ushi got in the car and put it into gear I felt sick.
I listened to every shell being slid into the tube of that shotgun and imagined a body dead in the streets.