“You ready for tonight’s mission?”

That was Vera, of course, It was a few days after I had agreed to join her gang, and we were wrapping up work for the day, unloading an endless series of creates from a cotton ship from Mississippi. I never thought cotton could be heavy, but after unloading ten thousand cubic feet of it by hand, my back was aching.

“Vera… I’m tired. Can’t we do it some other time?” This was the first time she’d mentioned the mafia stuff after what happened. I was happy with the extra money we’d made that night, but I was kind of hoping to get out of it.

“Huh? You call yourself a man? You should have no trouble unloading a little fluff like this and then pulling a job with me. Don’t you want to earn some extra cash?”

“I do, but I’m exhausted. That ship was huge!” I was mostly just looking for an excuse to get out of doing any more shady stuff, but I really was exhausted.

“Well yeah… cotton is a light load, so there’s a lot of it. Anyway, that’s not my concern. You’re coming with me, whether you like it or not.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. Don’t forget: I’m the boss of you.” She smirked. “If you don’t follow orders, I’ll kick your ass, blackball you from the docks, and maybe even tell the police about what you did the other night.”

I sized her up. I had been working on the docks long enough now to build up some muscle, and I wasn’t quite as intimidated by Vera as I used to be.

“Are you going to tell the police you led me into crime? Because that sounds a lot worse for you than it does for me.”

“Well, we’ll see if they see it that way. By the way, I have some friends in the police HQ. Do you? Didn’t think so.” She smirked at me.

“...No.” I decided to play along until I could find out if that was actually true. “Just tell me what it is you want me to do.”

“I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. Just trust me. You’ll like this one, I’m sure.”

“That sounds really bad…”

“It’ll be fine. Trust me.”

So, with many, many misgivings, I once again found myself walking with Vera and Akari through the Tenderloin at night.

“Take this,” Vera said, and pushed something into my hands. It was hard, cold, and metallic. A knife. And not the friendly kind of knife that you use for chopping up vegetables—this one was a lot pointier and stabbier.

“Hey, Vera, this is too much. Why are you making me carry a knife?”

“Because I don’t trust you with a sword yet.” That’s when I realized that she and Akari were both carrying swords—a cutlass for Vera and a katana for Akari.

“OK, that’s it. This is too far. Tell me right now what’s going on.” I said forcefully. “I’m not going to stab anyone.”

“Of course not!” Vera answered sweetly. “I would never dream of asking you to hurt anyone! This is all just for appearance, don’t worry. The more strength we show, the less likely we’ll actually have to hurt anyone. And we need to show them that we’re tough enough to handle the job.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the job?” I asked.

Akari answered instead of Vera: “We will be providing private security. Tonight’s mission is a sales pitch to convince them to hire our services.”

Well that didn’t sound so bad.

“That’s all? You promise? We’re not going to attack anyone?”

“Of course not!” said Vera. “This is a dangerous part of town, and people living here need security. We just need weapons to protect ourselves, and our customers.”

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Slightly reassured, I followed them into a seedy-looking building. Inside were three very cute-looking girls.

“Good evening, ladies!” said Vera. “Sorry to disturb you, but we were just passing through and-” She was cut off by the girls screaming.

Akari stepped forward and pointed her sword at one of the girls. “Please stop screaming” she said, but the girls only screamed louder.

Vera stepped forward, grabbed one of the girls, put her hand over her mouth, and held her sword to the throat. “Stop screaming or I will cut her!” She yelled.

The other girls immediately stopped screaming. I watched, terrified of what Vera might do, and with no idea what to do.

“Ahem.” Vera went back to her normal speaking voice. “As I was saying, we were just passing through, and we noticed that this building is sorely lacking in security. We would like to offer you our services.”

“Huh? You’re just here to sell something?” asked one of the girls.

“Right. Safety and security, that’s what we’re selling. One of us will be here every night, keeping guard, making sure no bad guys come to hurt you.”

The girls looked at each other. “Um. I don’t think we need that. We’re already paying a group for protection. Thank you for the offer, but…”

“You misunderstand,” said Akari with a voice of even more ice than usual.

“Yeah, this ain’t no offer,” said Vera. “You definitely need to buy what we’re selling. Otherwise, Eddie here-” she gestured at me—”is gonna go real wild with that knife, and I don’t think you’ll like what he’s gonna do with it.”

“Hey, what?” I said. I was starting to understand what was going on here, and I didn’t like it.

“At the docks we call him ‘Crazy Eddie’” said Vera.

“It’s true, he is very crazy,” said Akira. “Once he tried to attack a whole squad of armed guards, by himself, unarmed, for no reason at all.”

“That was an accident! And no, I’m not crazy. Vera, I’m not playing along with you on this. I’m not going to help you run a protection racket. Let these girls go.”

“Did you forget our little conversation earlier?” asked Vera. “There will be consequences if you quit.”

“I don’t care,” I said, as sternly as I could. “Now let them go.”

For a few moments Vera and I stood there, staring at each other, neither of us willing to back down. But then she dropped her sword and pushed the girl away. “Eh, I hate to admit it, but you’re right. My heart’s not in this. I think I’m just too kind and gentle for this line of work.”

Just as we had resolved this tense situation, I heard a loud knocking on the door. Akari opened it, and revealed a lone man standing there. It was the same small, fish-eyed man I saw the other night sitting at the Dragon Gang table.

“Good evening,” he said. “My name is Smiley. I hope I am not disturbing you fine ladies. I simply came to pick up the payment for our protection services.” He said it in a calm voice, but there was a distinct trace of menace in his tone.

“We—we don’t have it!” said the girl Vera had been threatening earlier. “We’ll get it, but we need more time!”

“Oh?” said Smiley. “That is unfortunate. My employer, Morgan Blackstone, is not a patient man. I must insist that you pay immediately.”

“Hey!” I spoke up. I was feeling oddly heroic tonight, and something about this Smiley guy really rubbed me the wrong way. “You heard them. They don’t have it, so come back later. And don’t mess with them, because we’re looking after them.”

“Oh?” He seemed very surprised by my words. “And who might you be?” He glanced over at Vera, and recognized her. “Are you with her?”

“My name’s Crazy Eddie, and I don’t like bullies!”

He laughed. “I am no bully, but you are indeed crazy to pick a fight with me. And you, Vera, you were always crazy. I will come back to resolve this matter later. Goodnight!”

With that he left, giving me a dirty look as he did so. As soon as the left, the girl who had been held hostage came running over and hugged me tightly.

“Thank you so much for saving me!” she cried. “I was so scared!”

“No problem, it’s the least I could do. After all, we did threaten you, too. You really shouldn’t be thanking me.”

“Well yeah but… you forced them to stop! And you stood up to that other guy, too!”

Vera and Akari looked at each other. “Yeah, about that…” Vera said. “Do you realize you just personally pissed off one of the main henchman from Dragon Gang? You better watch yourself, Eddie, because he’s probably going to come after you now.”

I was riding high on adrenaline, so I spoke up boldly. “Yeah, well, so what,” I said. “I realized something tonight, Vera. I don’t like gangsters. I didn’t like what you and Akari were doing, and I don’t like that Smiley guy either. So I’m going to stand up to him and his gang, even if it is a bit risky. And I hope you two will back me up on that.”

Akari sighed. “I think what you did tonight was extremely reckless, but I must admit I felt some moral pangs from what we were doing. I will support you.”

“Yeah… whatever. Me too. For now,” said Vera. “But I’m still your boss, got it!?”

The girls cheered at this declaration. It must have been very strange for them, since we had first come here to shake them down, then ended up on their side. But they seemed happy to have us as allies.

We hung around for a while, discussing the situation. None of us really had any good ideas, since we didn’t know how they might threaten us. We agreed to simply be on the lookout while avoiding trouble, and maybe after a while Dragon Gang would forget about the matter. So after some time, I simply returned to my room at the boarding house. That was the end of my brief stint in the criminal underworld.