Re: Capo di Tutti Capi - III (Summaries and Notices)
What do we need, what do we hunger for
Who holds the secrets, who will know
Temples of greed in ruins on the riverbed
Wastelands that lived before the snow
Time stands still as we race through the universe
On our way to the sun
As we arrive at the house of the water sign
We are living in strange times
Strange times, strange times
-- Lodge & Hayward (Moody Blues) "Strange Times"
Summary of Events, Night Four
After the long and contentious session culminating in discovery1's lynching, Andres was anything except calm, cool, and collected. Still seething at how close it had come to being himself who took a trip to Club 30, Andres went for a quick bite to eat and more than one stiff drink to calm his mood. From there, it would be a fairly quick drive home.
Arriving home without any difficulties, Andres had quietly mounted the 3 steps up to his townhome, opened the door, and then stepped back one step to give things a quick 'once-over.' As he paused, the kunai whipped over his shoulder out of the darkness behind him and through his doorway.
The silver flash of the blade going by was terrifying, but Andres had little time to be frightened. The kunai severed a single thin rope, which in turn allowed a long thing shelf to drop away, which in its turn allowed a dozen vials of golden powder to dump their contents into the convenient sluices set up in front of the vials. In the time it took the vials to pour their contents through the channels and onto the puddled water left on the floors of Andre's townhome, Andres managed to turn and catch a glimpse of the knife thrower.
A tall figure, hat low over his eyes and the collar of his gleaming black leather trench coat pulled all the way up, stood in the street only 20 feet away. Andres goggled as the stranger actually waved.
"This has been my most expensive show thus far..."
As the powder ignited the entire first floor of Andres' home more or less simultaneously, the blast from the sudden flash of ignition dropped him to the pavement at the foot of the steps, stunned.
"....I hope you appreciate it."
The leather-clad stranger walked off into the night, whistling "Runyonland" from Guys and Dolls. Andres rolled over and watched his home burn.
Diana Abnoba had just stepped out of the Hotel Abbatoir when they came at her. A pair of shooters, each bringing up a double-barreled 12-gauge into firing position, were only 20 feet away. She froze.
In the split second before the shooters opened up on Diana, two surprising things happened. The first was a fully masked man in a vey heavy coat jumping between her and the shooters and pushing her back through the door she'd just left. The second surprise was the lobby candy cart man -- also masked? -- who rolled his cart between Diana and the doors and kept it there while chivvying her toward the rear exit.
Diana quickly exited the hotel...only to be confronted with a second pair of masked shotgunners. Again she froze, silhouetted against the metal fire-door she'd just jogged through. Both shooters had twin-barreled shotguns and both cut loose with both barrels.
Nobody would ever quite explain it -- a freak swirl of Winter wind? poorly loaded shells? -- but all 4 spread patterns missed her at a range of 15 feet, slamming into the wall and doors with deadly force. Both she and her would-be killers were stunned that all the shooting had accomplished exactly nothing -- but Diana was a split second faster to recover and much faster on foot.
Neither the candy-cart man nor the fellow whose thick coat had apparently carried enough armor for a light tank stayed long enough to answer questions. Having missed their opportunity, none of the shooters hung around for long either. Diana was in her apartment in near Olympic time -- but it would be a long time before her adrenalin slowed enough for her to sleep.
Jolt sat at his table, waiting for coffee and dessert after what had been a simply wonderful repast. Rabbit wasn't a common menu item in a New Jersey restaraunt, but Jolt had always enjoyed the tasty lean meat and had taken advantage of this evening's special. Only the rabbit's having been served to him 20 minutes late had marred the otherwise impeccable meal.
The team of waiters arrived with his dessert -- a red tart -- and coffee. Jolt quickly sipped the steaming beverage, grimaced....and then spat it on the table. He jumped up.
"TEA! I didn't order tea! What is the meaning of this?"
The wait staff suddenly became a restraint team as the two underwaiters grabbed Jolt by the arms and roughly shoved him back into his chair. The waiter himself grabbed Jolt in a half Nelson, shoving a napkin into his mouth as he began to shout, and then turned it into a full Nelson, immobilizing Jolt entirely.
"Curioser and curioser..." said the 4th man as he stepped into the alcove where Jolt had been dining.
This 4th man produced a large purple tophat -- a caricature of a real opera hat -- and jammed it down over Jolt's head, covering his eyes. He then produced a long steel hat needle, carefully placed it at the back of the too-low hat, and forcefully punched the sharp needle forward. The needle secured the hat to Jolt's head and punctured his medula in one motion. Jolt died like a pithed frog, quivering and jerking as the waitstaff held him still.
The team of killers closed the curtain on the alcove and quietly left the restaraunt.
It had been a late night, and the dark figure had started to grow cold from sitting and watching the Commissioners house. The front door opened at last, spilling light out into the darkness, and warmly illuminating Commissioner Fermanagh and Director Reenk Roink in contrast to the chilly gloom of the evening.
Letting a puff of breath escape into the night, the figure waited as Seamus and Reenk talked and exchanged good-byes, the Director tipping his hat sauvely as he left and Fermanagh closed the door. Reenk waived forward the woman he'd re-directed at Club 30 hours ago.
"Give it 10 minutes or so, then knock."
The redhead nodded, a look of quiet adoration on her face. Roink waited as his men brought his car around, and bodyguards sitting to either side of him in the back seat of the big touring Packard. The car backed out of Fermanagh's drive and turned onto the Boulevard. The dark figure watched, caressed the gun at it's side, and without a further moment's hesitation, started the Indian and followed the Director's car into the night.
Pulling up alongside the vehicle, the stranger pulled out an M12, and before the driver could react, blew out both the side window and his brains, splattering the director and those in the vehicle with him. The armored car nearly flipped into the nearby ditch, but was saved but the timely reflexes of the forward passenger who righted the vehicle. The motorcyclist took aim again, but the new driver pulled a hard left and nearly slammed into the stranger, who had throttled the engine and let it fall back.
Pushing the dead driver out of the vehicle, the guard riding shotgun took the drivers seat while the four bodyguards in the rear with Director Reenk pushed him to the floor and got their Tommy guns out and levled through the windows on each side, prepared to fire at their attacker. As soon as the rear-most right side bodyguard's head stuck out, a trench knife seated itself into the man's eye socket, causing the second right side guard to flinch back. Quickly grabbing the coat of the dead policeman, the dark stranger opened up the throttle and used the added momentum to pull the dead guard from the car to land tumbling on the road.
Seizing the opportunity, the driver swerved at the assailant, sending the motorcycle into a spin, but not before the stranger leapt onto the car and held fast. The motorcycle, riderless, fell underneath the vehicle and tore the right rear wheel to shreds, sending the car into a fish-tailing spin that soon ended with the vehicle bouncing off a wide oak tree at the side of the road. The Packard rebounded off the tree, catching the left wheels on their edge, and gently rolled onto it's left side.
As Director Renk crawled from the wreck, one of the bodyguards who had been in the back with him lifted him up and carried him to safety as the car began to burn. Neither the driver nor the front left guard cleared the vehicle before the bursting fuel tank doused them with burning gasoline. Their sudden screams also drowned out the blast of the shotgun that crippled the guard who'd carried Reenk. The guard fell, one knee shot through, scrambling to get his revolver out as he rose painfully to one knee.
Before he could even fire it, the dark stranger, who's masked silhouette now seemed distinctly female, raven hair having slipped from under her hat and grey eyes peering over the facemask below, knocked it out of his hand and kicked him to the side like so much trash. She leveled her pistol at the stunned Director, cold barrel pressing against his forehead just between the eyes.
"Tol'ko bog banka konsyervov byt' nevinnyy."
The last remaining guard, staggering toward the burning car from where he'd been thrown during the wreck, fired his revolver at Roink's would-be executrix as rapidly as he could pull the trigger. He didn't hit her at all, despite being only fifteen feet away...but in emptying his gun in her general direction he did manage to hit her pistol, denting the action as his .38 slug ricocheted off into the sky.
The assassin pulled the trigger on the now-useless pistol, then shouted "neha" in frustration and whipped the pistol across Reenk's head, knocking him unconscious. She turned to the guard, still fumbling to load a fresh cylinder into his revovler, and began to draw her shotgun from it's over-the-shoulder holster. She had almost cleared the weapon when she saw the lights and heard the many sirens of the approaching police. She stepped forward quickly, kicking the still-unloaded gun from the hands of the last guard and following it with a roundhouse kick that knocked him against the still-burning Packard. With one last shout of frustration, she disappeared into the shadows.
Morning Meeting, opening of Day Five
"...so anyway, Director Reenk will be here in time for the afternoon session to administer the Lynch vote and to oversee the next Director's selection. I'm not sure if he plans to continue after last night..."
Fermanagh looked haggard, and his briefing had even less energy than usual. He continued.
"Well, here are the results of the post-mortem investigations on Death, pever, FactionHeir, and Yaro.
Death is Yonder and pevergreen both appeared to be wiseguys. Sources haven't suggested anything about either of them being unusual and we have nothing to indicate that either of them was trying to work with the mafia against us. It's hard to say if the town is better off or not....we just don't know.
FactionHeir, however, was a real success. Some of our snitches have confirmed, now that he's dead and can't take vengeance, that he was a Made gangster in one of the families. Apparently he only came to town very recently, so we don't know which family he was working with, but his death is proof that Tosa's lynch system can save us, no matter how harsh it may seem.
Finally, I have to acknowledge that we lost out as well. Yaropolk was an innocent townie, and we have no indications that he was turning toward crime or represented any sort of threat to the town.
All-in-all, I think we might be winning, however harsh the cost."
Fermanagh grimaced. Clearly he felt that the cost had been high.
"Commissioner," asked one of the committee, "why are you dragging so badly today?"
Fermanagh scowled.
"Some redhead was banging on me door at midnight last night and when I open it to see what her problem is, she waltzes in and starts pulling off her dress. While I'm standing there wandering what in Mary's sweet name is goin' on, Mildred walks downstairs to see who was calling so late. Mildred starts screamin' and Red starts saying she'll take care of us both and I start shoutin' that I've no goddamn idea what's going on and...."
Fermanagh paused from re-living the exasperation of the preceding evening.
"Anyway, suffice to say Mildred had me doon to the parish rectory and I spent all evening telling Father Lonigan why I really didn't do ANYTHING and don't need to be heading off to Lourdes and...I didn't get much sleep.
Despite the tense nature of these morning sessions, more than a few chuckles were aimed at the Commissioner. Sheepishly, Fermanagh finished up.
"Well, I've assigned a new squad of guards to the director. With 4 killed an 2 hospitalized I had trouble with volunteers, so I ordered a few of our tougher lads to take over, like it or not. Hopefully, they'll quell anything else before it gets that bad again."
The committee reviewed the rules and procedures, then filed out to their work before returning that afternoon to vote and to select.
OOC
Voting will conclude at 1600 Eastern Tuesday (2000 GMT).
Investigation results will be late as I am still reconstructing that part of the database. I'll try to have them out by midnight tonight.
Vote for lynchee and Select director for days 6 & 7.
The Cost of Life in Fatlington:
Attacked: Beefy187 (n1), DJGingivtis (n2), GSC (n2), Beskar (n3), Double A (n3), Lord Winter (n3), Andres (n4), Diana Abnoba (n4), Reenk Roink (n4)
Killed: Quintus.JC (n1), The Stranger (n1), Death is Yonder (n2), pevergreen (n2), Yaropolk (n2), Myrddraal (n3), Jolt (n4),
Lynched: Factionheir (d2), CountArach (d3), GeneralHankerchief (d3), discovery1 (d4),
Wogged: None so far, first woggings will be soon I fear.
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