How I Got Here: "Donnie Brasco"
02 Feb 2023Columbuss
Commander Justin Estok. Stardate 2-FEB-3309."...we both know how this ends."
Shorty purses his lips, all dark purple and bruised, spitting blood out onto the floor. Sitting across from him, I watch as he leans as far forward as his restrained hands, locked behind the back of his chair, will allow. Looking down, I see the blackish red stain streaked across the toe of my boot. For six hours it's been like this. Six hours and all I've gotten out of him is blood stained boots and a puddle of piss beneath his chair. Looking down at the piss, and the blood already starting to dry, I can't help thinking about how I'm going to need to find a new chair after this.
Outside, The Chelsie is in a full spin. After we left Whitworth and shot out into the void with Shorty unconscious in the cargo hold, I burned Chelsie's thrusters while switching off the flight assist, leaving nothing to correct her rotation. As the Asp continued to spin, I stepped out of the pilot's seat and set foot on the deck finding myself able to walk. Everything out here in The Black is a matter of perspective. From outside, The Chelsie is spinning wildly through the void, rocketing through empty space at the same speed as our last engine burn. In here, everything is still, calm and quiet. From this perspective, its the galaxy outside that's out of control.
"Look..." I say, leaning forward, until Shorty and I are face to face. Blood runs out from between his lips and down between his eyes from a gash in his bald head. "It doesn't have to go this way. Just tell me how to find Lorencian. Shorty... Shorty, listen to me. The way you feel right now, for what I have to offer you... I can promise, it's not gonna get this good again."
"Ya know, for someone who knows "the life", you're pretty fuckin' stupid," he says with a maniacal grin, the teeth I haven't punched out of his mouth showing through, all caked in a bloody, red mess. "If you are who you say you are, then we both know how this ends."
Let’s jump back six hours. Before the beatings. Before I cuff Shorty to my favorite chair and try forcing him to tell me about Lorencian Ardulo and Astral Projections. Before I wheel him, and my favorite chair, into the air lock, sealing it behind me and opening the outer doors. Let's rewind, to me sitting at the bar in the Whitworth Station concourse for the seventh night in a row. A glass of Federal Reserve sitting half empty in front of me while I watch the screen above the bar through a cloud of smoke billowing up from the ashtray. The screen shows live footage of ground combat from Al Mina in what it's calling an "escalating situation".
"I just don't understand why you have to be there every single night, boss," says the voice on the micro-comm in my ear.
"Kid, this isn't like walking in to the Federal Tech Academy and putting your name on a piece of paper. This isn't something you just sign up for."
The voice in my ear, it belongs to Brandson Hardy. A comm/tech expert and Finn's cousin. He showed up a few weeks back, bags in hand, after my meeting with Finn on Atarapa. I guess he thought I could use some help, despite my protests to the contrary. At the very least, he could have sent me someone a little bit older. Brandson wasn't much more than a kid but it didn't take long before I realized what a talent he had in his profession.
Onboard The Chelsie, back when we were still sitting on a landing pad in Sharp Dock, Brandson set up his gear in the cargo bay. In several well rehearsed movements, he had an entire corner of the hold set up as a mobile surveillance and Intelligence gathering center. Different monitors showed camera feeds from various places, some on station, some not. Another screen showed financial records. Brandson scrolled through the list as an endless cavalcade of numbers raced up from the bottom of the screen and disappeared at the top. Before I had any time to ask him what all his equipment was for, he starts pulling files detailing a suspicious financial transaction he'd found from a Dynasty shell company called Armajett, to a corporation in the Loha System called Astral Projections. What the money was for and where this would lead the investigation, he wasn't sure, but this was as good a place as any to start.
Astral Projections, he goes on to tell me, was a mining company based on Whitworth Station in the Loha system, owned and operated by a man called Lorencian Ardulo, a midlevel member of an organized crime outfit called The Loha Council. The company employs several dozen miners in the system, who head out to a number of resource extraction sites, the company maintains permits to harvest from, and bring back raw material for processing. A lucrative business on the legitimate end. Astral Projections, however, was a front for Ardulo and his various criminal dealings. We just had to prove it.
"From what I hear," the kid says with a cheeky smile, looking at a photo of Lorencian Ardulo on the monitor, "They're your kind of people."
“My kind of people”. The sentence rolls off my tongue with such disdain that it even tastes bad coming out.
My kind of people know, this "life", it isn't something you sign up for. You can't just approach a group of guys who you know are connected and tell them you want to start running with them. These circles, they're always tight. Outsiders are always kept at arms length and, unless you knew any better, a mob bar like the one on Whitworth, where I was nursing a glass of Federal Reserve, wouldn't look any less like a bar you might just wander in to.
These people, they're only interested in what you can offer them but even that isn't enough for them to trust someone they don't know. You have to make it clear that you're a part of that "life". You have to be seen. You have to make it clear that you know and respect the rules. To do that, certain custom's need to be followed. Firstly, you never introduce yourself to someone "in the life" yourself. Unless these people approach you, it's always done by a third party. This third party, they're vouching for your character and your reputation.
Secondly, your best bet on an introduction is through someone who see's the people you want to get close to every day. Someone who mingles in their circles. Someone who occasionally dips his toe into the criminal pool. Your best bet is, and always will be, through a bar tender. Which is precisely why I was here. Several weeks back I handed this particular bartender a package, asking him what I might be able to get back. He took it and told me he'd let me know.
"Can I refill that for you?" the bartender asks.
"Federal Reserve. Neat." I say, pushing the empty glass toward him.
The bartender turns around, grabbing a bottle off of the shelf behind him and filling the glass. He turns back to me, setting the drink and an envelope on the bar. I take the envelope, and without opening it, slide it into my inside jacket pocket. I raise my glass to my lips, giving the bartender a nod before a man saddles up to the barstool next to mine and sits down.
"You're Columbus, right?" The man asks.
I glance over at him before turning back to my drink. He's a short, bald headed man in an old, but well kept suit. His accent is very "working class" and unique to this part of Federal space.
"Depends on who's asking," I reply.
"I'm the guy people come to see when they walk in here. The guy who says how things go in this part of Whitworth. I'm the guy who just put that envelope in your pocket for that "merchandise" you dropped off here a while back."
"I guess I should say thank you."
"For what?" he replies. A common tactic. Frank used to tell me, if we commit a crime together and I asked him about it a second after we did it, he'd deny any knowledge of it. They don't teach you this in school but, this is Mob Life 101. Standard protocol for Wiseguys.
Deny.
Deny.
Deny.
When you commit a crime, and you talk about it, it's like you're doing it again.
"Right," I say.
"I've been seein' you, hangin' around here," he says. "Where you from?"
"Somewhere," I reply. Look too eager and he'll know something's up. You want to be defensive and even a bit rude. Guy's in this life, they dont like prying eyes.
"Somewhere's good," he says, pointing to the bartender. "Jerry tells me you do transport work. You got a ship?"
"Yeah, I got a ship."
"Alright then," he says. "Let's go see your ship."
He turns from the bar, taking a few steps toward the door as I gulp down my drink. I'm going to need it for what comes next. He puts a little distance between himself and me when I whisper into the micro-comm.
"Kid, we're coming. Be ready."