Subject: “Scarlet Swami”
Known Abilities: persuasion, hypnotism.
Physical Characteristics: Ht__5”4___ Wt__100lbs___
Identity: Known Unknown
If Known: Jacob Magnus, aka Jacob Smith, circus performer
Affiliations: Gypsy [“Roma”] community, esp. in the Cincinnati, OH area. Cadre of Crime
Current Ideological Orientations:
America: Pro Anti Unknown
Law/Order: Pro Anti Unknown
Threat/Influence Assessment:
Jacob “Jake” Smith currently poses no threat to the U.S. government or its foreign / domestic aims. Smith is part of a subculture colloquially known as the ‘Gypsies,’ though the term ‘Roma’ or ‘Romani’ are factually more accurate. Interviewing his family has proven more than difficult. Not only do Gypsies have a centuries-old prejudice regarding dealing with figures of law enforcement, in America many Gypsy males are given two names: their ‘real’ name used among family, and their ‘American’ name, which is frequently the same as the given names of all the other males in their extended family.
An attempt to find ‘Jacob Dean Smith’ when there are no fewer than twenty-nine males with the same name in their tribe proved more than fruitless for two agents sent to gather information on him. They also learned that Gypsy males all have the birthday of January 1st on their birth certificates.
Magnus is unique in that he was turned out from the family almost as soon as he reached the age of majority. Though he is a proven effective social engineer, able to manipulate and even hypnotize others with extreme effectiveness, he apparently drew the line at bilking the poor and otherwise option-deprived, even when given direct orders to do so by members of his family command structure.
Subject began an independent fortune-telling business, using a red turban as his trademark. He further augmented his fortunes as a nightclub performer with a hypnotist act. When given the opportunity to use his ‘skills’ in the employ of a bank-robbery, he placed post-hypnotic suggestions in the mind of a bank guard.
The guard, lured into a hypnotic trap via a drinking session at a favorite bar, could not be reliably manipulated into complex actions such as opening the bank vault or a door at a reliable time. Investigations with our own hypnotist professionals revealed this and more: it was easier to hypnotize the guard into standing perfectly still in abject fear in the presence of Magnus and his henchmen.
Magnus is still a relatively low-level confidence man and social engineer. His scams are capable of little more than momentary lapses in a life of poverty, yet they have been increasing in scope. Subject appears content to steal amounts from those who will take little notice of it.
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“Alright then,” she said, commanding the room like a circus ringleader directing horses under the bigtop. “Russ? Hit the lights. Guys, here’s the target:”
The slide projector clucked and chuckled. A relatively nondescript door blinked into existence on the white canvas.
“Gentlemen, this is the front door of the Wharton Dessel Safe Deposit Comp’ny. We’re gonna hit it, take it for all it’s worth, and be gone before anyone knows we were there.”
“What’s the take?” Mitch asked. I couldn’t read people easy as Jake, but he looked to me like he was speaking more out of wanting to look smart than actually interested. He was finding himself more and more trying to impress Jane, though he’d never have admitted it publicly.
“I got a man on the inside, Mitch. We’re lookin’ at anywhare from a hundred to two-hundred million in those little, tiny safe-deposit boxes. Any more questions afore we take the skin off the chicken and get to the meat?”
PART TWO. THREE DAYS LATER.
Tazzi’s was the kind of bar that exists is every city, town, and podunk little hamlet in America and most other countries in the world with regular access to alcohol: the kind of bar that gives cheap booze to an undistinguished and indiscriminate clientele who want to get drunk fast and pay little to accomplish it.
It also had a wheelchair access ramp. Not because the bar’s current owner had a particularly enlightened mind, or was all that interested in bringing the place up to code, but because the space itself had been rented out cheap and fixed up by the previous owner, a small-time restaurateur who lived an honest life and was easy prey for the kind of lowlife who eventually ran him out of business and took over the place.
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That lowlife now sat in the back room, his bald head visibly sweating while talking on the phone, his eyes wide with worry though his voice was very calm.
“Iz, you gotta see where you’re putting me,” he said, his voice still even though he knew it would crack if he talked too long. “I’ve always had the rent and the taxes on time to you, haven’t I? Maybe late once or twice in the last three years? But jacking it up to twenty-five? I’ll be out’ve business, and you’ll get nothing, then. Is that what you want?”
The voice on the other line was loud, decisive, and unyielding. A person in the next room could’ve heard the words ‘TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT’ bellowed into the receiver,before being silenced with a loud click.
Crap, he thought. Jimmy Manson, he thought to himself, they may call you ‘the Moose,’ but you’re just a little bitty muskrat in a bigger game you’re just about to lose. His ma, God rest her soul [if there was a God; ‘Moose’ Mason didn’t have a mind given to thoughts past the pleasure of the weekend, and as such hadn’t seen the inside of a church since his childhood.], had warned him when he’d been in school about hanging out with the likes of Iz and his crowd of thugs. She’d told young Jimmy that they were using him, roping him in with a nickname, free beer, and the occasional girl tossed his way, and he’d wake up to it and realize it was all too late.
And today that day had come. He’d seen himself as an up-and-comer, the muscle that had finally gotten something of his own instead of always being pointed like a gun at the next target. He looked around the cramped space that made up his office. This was what he was so proud of? He’d been working for Iz’s crew for twelve years now. A loyal soldier. And this was the best he’d get? The other kids he’d gone to school with and bullied all had wives, kids, jobs and houses. The biggest things they had to worry about was getting their sons to soccer practice on time, and bringing home enough money to make sure there was food on the table.
Moose had to bring in enough money to keep his boss, Iz, satisfied. And Iz just changed the percent of his take of the gross on a whim.
And Moose finally realized: Iz had a boss, too. Iz was brutal, but he’d almost always been fair. Iz had a boss who was likely demanding more cash for whatever reason, which made Iz demand it of Moose and the other members of the crew who were all doing their own thing.
Shit always rolls downhill, Moose thought somberly. Now Moose had to lean on the barkeeps to get more drinks poured for both the drinkers and the johns that the whores bled dry.
It was a shitty life, lived in a shitty place. But there was no way out that Moose could see.
There was a knock at the door. Moose put his hand under his desk, just in the off chance that Iz or one of his competitors had been feeling a little paranoid and sent a torpedo to make a point or an example to others.
“Who is it?” Moose growled in a voice he hoped was intimidating.
“Guy needs to see you, Moose. He’s in a wheelchair.”
Wha? “Tell ‘im to fuck off. I got things to do.”
“Boss, he’s . . .”
“Right here!” said the little man as the door opened, rolling right past one of Moose’s bigger lunkheads and into the office. “Moose!” said the man, who looked about eighty. “You remember me, Moose? When you were a little fellow, I came by your house alla time! Your dad an’ me we go way back.”
“I hated my dad. Get the fuck out or you’ll get bounced out, chair or no chair.”
“Moose, is that any way to treat an old family friend?”
“I don’t remember any old family friends, especially ones in wheelchairs. Larry, get this fucker out and come see me af-”
The little man, moving quicker than Moose had ever seen a wheelchair-bound man move, grabbed Larry’s hand and slapped it.
“Sleep,” the guy said.
Larry dropped in a heap into the chair that luckily was behind him.
Moose’s hand went for the gun that was bolted underneath the lip of the desk.
“Stop,” the little guy said, raising his hand, palm out.
Moose stopped.
“Moose,” the skinny little freak said as he rose out of the wheelchair and stretched a bit, “I’ve been keeping tabs on you here an’ there since you were in high school. You didn’t like your dad much, an’ truth is he really was an asshole, even by the standards of the comp’ny you an’ I keep. But he did owe me big, and he told me if I ever needed anything to come to him, and if he was dead I was to come to you.
“Now, I need something. Quite a few somethings. And you’re gonna help me for two reasons:” Now the little freak was leaning on Moose’s table, looking him straight in the eyes.
“First, I put a little something in your head when you were ‘way younger and your dad was still alive. Nice little trick at a party, hypnotize folks and make ‘em forget about it. Your dad thought it was funny as fuck to see his son clucking like a chicken and then forget about it. And you forgot about it. But I told that little brain of yours to stop you when I said ‘stop’ and held up my hand like this.
“So, Moose, here’s how you’re gonna help me. I’m gonna need about a half-dozen heaters with no bullets in ‘em. I’m gonna need ten grand in cash, and a buncha nylon ropes, hooks, and carabiners. You’re gonna send your mooks to the local Home Base shops to get ‘em for me. And when this is all done in a few weeks, I’m gonna spot you enough money you can tell your boss, Izzy, to go piss off and take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut as you watch your new-bought mooks fit him for cement overshoes and drop him in the Southebend river. Savvy? Blink your eyes twice if you get me, Moose.”
Moose blinked. Twice.
“Good. Now, Larry,” he said, turning to the sleeping side of beef in the chair behind him, “when I snap my fingers, you’re gonna wake up, and you’re gonna feel great. You too, Moose. Larry, you didn’t hear anything I said to your boss here, and I’m your good buddy. Moose, you’re gonna have my stuff here in this office next week, and you’re gonna be so on board with my little plan, but you’re gonna keep it to yourself. Ready boys? In three, two, one…”
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