CHAPTER 2: THE FISH
----------------------------------------
It took a while to get back to my old place, and of course, I took David and Brian. They’re the few I told about my land returning to me and they decided to join up with me so they can have high positions in the underworld when I return to the spotlight. Honestly though with the fact they’re having me hide it, it’s like they have me working undercover without having actually infiltrated them yet. As I want the rest of my land back it’s best I wait till I actually get it before making them all upset and ruining any chance I have to get in the gambling circle to take my home back.
When I got to the old place, I saw that it was still being run by the same family it always was. There weren’t many people, it being noon and all. When I greeted the old owners, who took me in back when I just started gaining a following, I received a warm welcome in response. “Jack is that you? Have you finally come home?” [Shirsha]
“Ah, it’s been a while since I heard anyone call me by my last name. yeah, I’m coming home I just wanted to know if you still had room for me before I got all my stuff and made the journey across town.” [S]
“You know we’ll always have room for you Jack me boy.” [Shirsha] back when I was in charge of the little gang I had everyone felt they should call me Jack so if the police or anyone ever looked for me I could honestly tell them my name is Sean and put the blame on someone else. We never got the chance to see if that would work but I never thought it would. It was something that was decided for me when I was in charge of things. “you can call me Sean you know. I don’t feel right knowing you’re so kind and still talking to me like I’m your boss when I’ll be in your care again.” [S]
“Oh, I couldn’t do that, you’ve earned the respect you had. Even if no one else ever calls you Jack again you’ll always be Jack to me” [Shirsha] her kindness was blinding. I could almost feel the devotion weighing me down. I hadn’t even shown her the chip yet. Not that I’ll have to it seems she interpreted my return as a return to power. Like she could feel in her bones I wouldn’t return here if something hadn’t have happened. “I’m actually here to deliver a message and maybe have a beer or two. Though I’d like to move back in. I never did settle into my new place.” [S]
I handed her the invitation with the blank namespace and as if that was enough it looked like she had realized something and went back to looking professional. Like I was just another customer. “right then, I’ll see to it he gets the letter if I see him though I doubt he’ll come today.” [Shirsha]
“why’s that?” [S]
“he tends not to drink on Saturday. I’ve never heard the reason, but I can guess.” [Shirsha]
“has it got anything to do with the church they’ve bought?” [S]
“couldn’t tell ya I’m not too well acquainted with ‘em” [Shirsha] she seemed almost like she was lying. Like she knew something but wasn’t sure she could say it. Maybe she knew I was working to find out more about them, for now, I shouldn’t pry too deeply. If she’s one of them, I’ll find out more the longer I hang around. For now, I won’t show her my authority chip. It’s still my job to find out about them and as this is the place their people tend to meet up it’d probably be better to just spend some time here. “has the menu changed at all since I’ve been here? I’ve missed your cooking while I’ve been away.” [S]
“I’ve thought about it but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. This old pub’s been around for so long I’ve been afraid to change any old thing about it lest it lose the history of the place. I’m assuming you’ll be taking the usual then?” [Shirsha]
“Yeah. Sounds good.” [S] When I first met her and her husband I was very proud and just a bit arrogant but they cared for me all the same, my life in the states wouldn’t have been the same without these guys supporting me for seemingly no reason at all. I think it was like a year before they told me they used to be friends with my parents and that they were looking out for me when I told them I’d be living in the states. They didn’t even charge me rent sometimes; it was like I had to be the one to remind them that my rent was due. But I just felt so bad not paying rent that I just couldn’t stop myself from paying them. Even if I couldn’t afford to at the time.
I decided to stick around for a while after delivering the letter into the hands of a woman I trust. And had myself a couple of beers with Brian and David, we hung out for a bit ate some food had some laughs and checked to see who was the best pool player… I might be just a bit as much of a gambler as the rest of the people in power in the underworld. While we were there a bunch of other people came up to us talked to us. We made a couple of friends, had a bit of fun gambling and drinking the night away. I made quite a bit of money. My skills in pool are nothing to scoff at but my friends and I are a pretty close match so playing against each other and placing bets on ourselves could only make us as much as our skills could carry us.
At some point in the night, we saw them. The only group of people in the whole bar that didn’t order a single drink. I could have sworn I saw Shirsha hand one of them the invitation and whisper something into her ear. I was assuming the man himself wasn’t there by the fact she handed the invitation to a woman. Or at least I think it’s a woman. She’s got a flat chest and long braided hair under that fedora she’s wearing. Could she be dressed up as him to meet up with someone? Could she, be he? Nope, she was a guy. When they all sat down and took off the masks people are now required to wear by law in public places, I could see a thick beard under that mask and a moustache. He still might have been a fake though. He had all the mannerisms and strange things about him talked about in some of the less consistent reports. For one he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. Most reports say he never takes them off. A rare one said that he did and when he did his Irises were red. I couldn’t see them too well in this lighting and I didn’t want to look like I was too interested in them from where I was standing and playing pool with my friends so I tried to ignore it and play it off as just one of the guys who pretend to be him. He tucked the invite in his pocket and said something I couldn’t make out, and I could tell from the look on Shirsha’s face she couldn’t hear him either.
As the night progressed and they’d had their meal an average worker looking man approached them and they started talking. By the tool belt he was wearing I assumed he was some kind of construction worker. Were they talking about fixing up the church? At this point, the previous game of pool concluded and as it was my turn next. I would have to leave my spot on the wall where I could take casual glances across the room, and actually, play the game.
I casually told David to keep an eye on that table while I was playing and he took up my spot on the wall and put a special pen in his flannel pocket that started recording that particular part of the room so he could watch us play and tell us what we needed to do while still keeping an eye on them… even if it was a robotic eye. He was very careful to stand in such a way that he was always facing them but also looked focused on the game. I was too distracted by him to really focus on the game and ended up losing that one. I stupidly asked to play double or nothing but by the end of that game, the people I’d been meaning to watch had left and David had gone to the bathroom to turn off the camera in private. I also received a message on my phone when he went. Apparently, the video had been sent to my phone. I sent the video to Felix the moment I knew what it was and was promptly paid for the first video evidence we have of these people. Yeah, I made a good deal of money tonight.
We played a few more rounds stuck around for dinner and had another chat to catch up with Shirsha and once we’d become fully drunk, we stumbled ourselves back home. I’d still have to pack my stuff if I wanted to move back into the old inn. I did tell Shirsha I’d go back anyways.
Usually, the nights are a dangerous time but since I was called directly to meet up with Mike and Felix a few rumours had gone around and the fact that Brian was standing next to me and still hadn’t officially quit Wade’s faction meant I was pretty safe no one was going to mess with me but now people are saying stuff like I’m some kind of delivery boy. I’m not too bothered but I can see the whispers and turned away looks from hoodlums and vandals in the alleys were affecting David and Brian as it upset them that I was being insulted but they couldn’t say anything cause I still needed to keep it a secret at least until I got my land back. Of course, from the outside looking in it probably just looked like a couple of angry gangsters walking behind their exasperated boss.
By the time we got home, it was already getting to the hour when I’d usually be curled up in bed next to my wife, asleep of course because nobody has the energy to be going at it at this time of night. But all the same, it was getting late and Brian still had his job as manager of these apartments to take care of and got to his cover job of ignoring the complaints of angry residents and overcharging people for repairs.
I got back to my apartment and went to the bathroom to freshen up before bed when I noticed something that wasn’t there this morning sitting on the toilet. “Eve, did you buy a fish?” [S]
“What?” [E]
“There’s a fish in here.” [S]
“In the bathroom?” [E]
“Yes!” [S]
“Where did it come from?” [E]
“I don’t know I was out all day” [S]
“Maybe you could ask Brian if anyone came into the house while you were out.” [E]
“Nah he was with me” [S]
“maybe one of his employees will know if anyone broke into our place and moved a fish in here without our knowing it.” [E]
“yeah… maybe… that reminds me. You remember how I used to live in an inn above a pub right?” [S]
“I vaguely recall you mentioning it once or twice… why?” [E]
“I’ve been invited to return there, and I know for a fact the landlords there keep the place in as good a condition as they can afford to.” [S]
“Nice as that sounds; do you really think it’s a good idea? Didn’t you move because you thought Mike would suspect you of trying to overthrow him if you stuck around your old base, especially after he sold it to Rob to raise money for charity?” [E]
"He won it back in a bet and lost it in a bet to me. He seems to want me there now. Plus, it’ll be easier to do the job I’ve been doing so far if I live there.” [S]
“Is it closer to what you need to look into?” [E]
“much closer.” [S] putting the fish out of my mind I tried to regain my composure, got myself changed into my pyjamas and went right to bed after brushing my teeth today was a tiring day after all.
The next morning, we began the process of packing up our stuff. Brian and David helped out here and there and while they did, I asked Brian if he knew about the fish that appeared out of nowhere in my bathroom. He told me he didn’t and that he’d look into asking his staff if anyone went into my room while we were away but that he’d help us move first and asked if I wanted to keep the fish.
I took another look at it when I was asked if I wanted to keep it. There was a large rectangular fish tank sitting on top of the back of the toilet in the master bathroom. Inside the tank was a small, but fat and long fish swimming around its tank opening its large mouth from time to time. “what kind of fish is this?” [S]
“I think it’s a monkfish… if it is though it’s a baby cause those things get huge.” [B]
“So, what if I plan to keep it, I have to get a bigger tank at some point?” [S]
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“probably.” [B]
“you know I’ve heard that kinda fish is pretty tasty if you raise it big enough it could last you a while too.” [D]
“What? it’s so ugly though.” [B]
“I don’t know that I’d want to go into fish farming, but I guess I’ll keep that in mind” [S]
I wasn’t particularly interested in keeping a fish I never wanted but it wasn’t the fish’s fault it found its way into my house. “for now, I guess I’ll keep it until I find someone who wants it more” [S]
“If you don’t want it I’ll take it” [D]
“You just want to eat it, don’t you? And you don’t even know how to cook it anyway” [S]
“You know what that’s a fair point, but I can learn, and if it gets big enough, I’ll have plenty of time to get it right.” [D]
“For your own good I won’t give it to you we don’t know if it’s even the fish you think it is. What if it’s poisonous and not whatever delicacy you think it is” [S]
“aight fair enough” [D] after we finished packing up my stuff we got everything moved back into my old room at the inn and got ourselves situated it took a few days to fully settle in and after sending a quick message to Felix I found out that he either has nothing to do with the fish or has been paid off and won’t tell me about it.
Once we got all my regular stuff settled in Brian brought the fish over. I asked Shirsha if we could put it either somewhere on the bar or in open view of the customers along the wall. I told her we’d get a bigger tank for it so it can have more space if it does turn out to be a baby.
She didn’t really oppose the idea it seemed more like she was reluctant to change the way the bar looked but at the same time realized I couldn’t fit a bigger tank than the one the fish was in comfortably in my room at the inn so she told me that if I could find a good place for it I could bring the fish into open view of everyone. I should probably hurry and find a place to work in the tank because my invitation to the games we’ll be playing for the rest of my land is scheduled for tomorrow.
After a careful walkthrough of the layout of the bar and place, I found enough space where an old jukebox used to stand but was eventually moved out cause some drunk broke it in a bar fight one day. The wall was big enough and it was about the right size.
I had to look up online if there was a special kind of water I needed for this fish and took a picture of the fish to a pet store where they helped me pick out the stuff I would need and I told them where to take it and that I’d already left a hand-drawn blueprint of the floor plan and where I wanted the tank and its contents to go. I paid for the delivery and installation to be done professionally and went home to the bar to get back to my job of coming through files.
While the pet store people were busy getting the stuff, I ordered together and installing it the fish was sitting between me and my TV on the coffee table as I read through reports. These more on the people themselves than their leaders as it’s much easier to find information on the members than their leader.
This one story I was reading however caught my eye. It was a report on a female police officer that seems way too excited about her line of work despite the fact she has a jaded old policeman for a partner. She just refuses to let her cheerful disposition die. Though it’s not been made an absolute certainty that she is one of them the fact remains the only way we can tell these people apart from others is that they tend to be the people who act differently despite their circumstances. They always seem unaffected or apathetic to their surroundings and just live as if the world around them were foreign and could be forgiven the “minor” inconveniences it tends to be filled with.
Emma’s POV
I start my morning early, make myself breakfast and prepare to set off on another beautiful day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all is right with the world. I put my uniform on and check myself in the mirror to make sure nothing’s out of place. “today will be a good day you will make this world a safer place today!” [Emma] as I give myself my morning prep talk, I sip my coffee and wait for my breakfast to finish cooking while listening to a few of my favourite songs.
May as well go wake up my partner, lest he shows up late or perhaps not at all again. I got my phone and called Tom. I heard the familiar sound of his ringtone coming from the alley between my apartment and the famously bad diner that sits right next to it. I took a step out the window onto the fire escape and looked down to see Tom, passed out in the clothes he was wearing the day before with a half-drunk bottle of scotch in one hand and a half-eaten hotdog covered in dirt and mud just slightly out of reach from his other hand.
I let out a sigh and went back inside to go downstairs drag him inside and wake him for breakfast. He was reluctant at first, but I managed to wake him up and at the offer of food he almost sobered up enough to look like he could get to work on time. For now, I gave him some leftover coffee from the pot I was planning on putting in a thermos and taking with me to work. And gave him the breakfast I was going to eat while also starting over and cooking myself new French toast and a little mini omelette from the leftover egg. “honestly what were you doing asleep on the street” [Emma]
“I didn’t feel like going home yesterday so I accepted this invitation from some lovely people to get my wallet and car keys stolen from me while I wandered the streets blindfolded. And now I don’t know where my car is.” [T]
“Oh, that’s terrible, did you get a good look at the men who did this to you?” [Emma]
“Nope I was pretty drunk… hey I’m not hungover maybe I’m still drunk.” [T] he tried to take a swig of the scotch bottle gripped tightly in his right hand, but I stopped him. “No Tom the coffee’s in your other hand and we have work in an hour.” [Emma]
“an hour? I woke up too early I gotta get back to sleep or I’ll never have the strength to solve the crimes we gotta solve by the end of the month” [T] while I disagreed with his work ethic his results are something I can’t argue with. Despite his appearances, he’s one of the best cops in this city. He seems meek and unassuming, but I think it’s just a clever ruse to trick the bad guys into thinking he’s not worth the effort. “Emma, I messed myself” [T] or maybe he’s just a savant and can’t take care of himself. Being only good at one thing must be hard.
“You want me to find the people who stole your keys so you can get back into your house?” [Emma]
“Nah let em keep em… I got family I’m avoiding.” [T]
“you wanna go down to the store after breakfast and get some new pants and underpants?” [Emma] he nodded, and a humming noise came out. And like that our morning as police officers in this town began.
After going down to the market, we picked up some clean clothes for Tom and he got changed in a construction site porta-potty. Afterword I returned to him his bottle. We went down to the precinct to get briefed for the day and heard something unsettling. “The underworld is plotting something. It’s been six months and no gang wars or disputes over territory have happened, which means all their attention is either turned towards plotting against us or each other. There are rumours the current crime bosses are friends which you all know would be disastrous for us as it would make us their soul target” [Captain Erin]
“I think you’re just being paranoid. Aren’t crime rates going down a good thing?” [Emma]
“Psh, no. Stupid. It usually means they’re hiding something like a child who’s afraid their parents will find out they broke a vase or something. And naughty children always act well when they don’t want their parents to know what they’ve done” [T]
“Exactly right Tom though you could have said it a bit more maturely… then again you also could have arrived at your job sober.” [CE]
“I only took this job to get inspiration for the book I’m writing” [T] from beside me Tom takes out a poorly illustrated children’s book style thing and starts drawing crude outlines with sentences a person with the thickest of glasses could read unaided. It looked to be a cross between a colouring book and a children’s learning how to read book about butterflies and trains. “you’ve been working here for years and are one of our best.” [CE]
“It’s a pretty complex book I’m worried my audience might not be ready for it yet.” [T]
Everyone stared at him as though he were something to be pitied though we all knew. He being the best probably said more about us than it did about him. Then again he only ever took the job after there was a mass exodus from this line of work that left only the people who wanted to be here, the people who had climbed too far to back out now, and people like Tom who saw the salaries went up to encourage people who otherwise wouldn’t ever go to policing school otherwise.
“I guess passion isn’t everything when you go into a line of work” [Emma]
“wha’ chu talkin’ ‘bout. I have plenty of passion… in making my book… It’ll make me a fortune.” [T] after the morning briefing, we went on our patrol just cruising along waiting for something to happen in these relatively lifeless streets. “Emma, the police at the precinct think you might be one of the people in the secret group that’s started popping up recently…” [T]
“what?” [Emma]
“but don’t tell Emma” [T]
“you cannot still be drunk right now. It’s been three hours” [Emma] he simply shrugged and hummed questioningly with a flask in his mouth. If not for his constant slurring and the ever-present reek of alcohol on him he’d probably be a halfway respected police officer but I suppose him being so unimpressive does lend itself well to him actually solving cases because he just seems so weak and powerless it’s almost hard to believe he has the most arrests out of anyone in the precinct and most of them seemed impossible. He just stumbles into success. Maybe he just acts the fool, so no one knows how good at his job he is even when presented with evidence of his skill.
“you’re not actually drunk right, now are you?” [Emma]
“shh” [T] he kept driving along for a bit until suddenly, “Stop the car” [T] in a move I’ve seen a hundred times Tom rushed out to throw up on the curb and as he was doing so stumbles across a couple getting mugged in an alley near a cinema. When the gun is suddenly pointed at him, he does a little hiccup and pretends to pass out like the drinks he’d been drinking all day just hit him. But the smell was definitely convincing. When the thief turned back around to rob the couple, he saw that they’d already snuck away in the confusion caused by the drunken detective. When he turned back to take out his anger on Tom, he’d already silently gotten back to his feet and slammed an emptied bottle of scotch on the thief’s head. And then he began slurring his way through the Miranda rights to the now unconscious thief as he sloppily made a show of struggling to get the handcuffs on him and nearby hoodlums were mocking him for managing to get arrested by this man.
Perhaps it really was all an act or maybe he planned to get so drunk he’d throw up and does this all the time. Regardless the rest of the workday was pretty uneventful. We received an anonymous tip an old crime boss who fell out of power recently moved back into his old base, but most of those rumours also said he just did it because the rent was cheaper. She wanted to go investigate it but thought it would be a bad idea to bring her alcoholic partner to a bar you could sleep in.
Besides an old friend from before everyone started leaving their positions as police officers wanted to meet up at exactly the place. She didn’t know what would become of that meeting, but she wanted to believe that her old friend could bring some life back to their boring lives of handing out parking tickets and dealing with petty theft and minor crimes. She was hoping to solve an old abandoned case of a boss who used a fake name and was never caught.
Sean’s POV
As I was reading through the files and documents, I realized something didn’t seem to add up. For a secret organization, we seem to have a lot of information on them. As if they aren’t the ones keeping themselves a secret but someone else is. Like knowledge about them is dangerous or something. But there seems to be a certain threshold for how much you can learn about them before curiosity takes you too deeply. From what we know anyone who leaves the group either by their own will or by force seems to believe the group doesn’t do anything particularly strange.
They get together for a meal every now and then and talk. At first, we thought maybe there was some kind of secret code to decipher in the conversations that go on there or that they eat some kind of food laced with something that makes people unable to disobey orders when given in certain words, but that was proven wrong pretty quickly. Why do we know so much if it’s supposed to be a secret? Maybe they don’t mind it being thought of as secret and revel in that people will be drawn into the mystery. I was drawn into the job by the money. But it’s weird the closer I get to finding out who they are and what they want the less it looks like they’re actively hiding anything.
Most if not all of our spies got in. a lot of them were promptly kicked out when they refused dinner and those that ate it had no major changes to their behaviour or personality. Mostly just paranoia that something would happen eventually. Half the time the spies thought they were in the wrong place like some nice people just had them over for dinner and exchanged a pleasant conversation. It was surreal to everyone who’s investigated them. They act like they have nothing to hide yet they meet and act in secret.
What is really going on with this group Felix has sent me to look into. As I combed through the files we had and sorted them into piles of likely and unlikely information, I started second-guessing myself and started taking a closer look at the unlikely things. “maybe they’re not so much inconsistencies in his friend’s portrayal of himself… maybe he carries himself in different ways in front of different people” [S] as I thought about this I thought back to the night I delivered the invitation into the hands of the hidden people and then stuck around to see if I could catch a glimpse of the guy even though I was told he wouldn’t show up that night. Maybe it was him. If I could see his hands better, I might have been able to tell if another point from the unlikely pile matched up with this man but as we were too far away, I couldn’t tell.
I get the feeling Felix gave me these files more to mess with me, like not that he couldn’t trust the common theme in the files, but that he felt it would be in my best interest to know more about them from that information we’d gathered so quickly. It’s almost strange this job is so high paying despite the fact all that’s happened to the people who failed is that they left the underworld and went straight. At first, it seemed like they were hiding from their old life but they will still talk to their old friends and help people move they just refuse to go back to their old lives and in some cases refuse to go near places they know either they used to work or they knew people worked frequently in shady secret things.
If I keep reading, I’m going to think the underworld keeps more secrets than these guys. And their secrets are strange too. Why would anyone keep quiet about how often a person smokes or drinks? Why hide a guy’s face or name? What good goes it do to keep these things secret anyways? Why did Mike specifically request I take this job? Who’s trying to keep them a secret and why?