Hunting a Priest Killer Day 3

Why is it that though a place may seem surrounded, especially when there are a large number of cars that are parked in almost perfect cylindrical circles around it, that people never cover the back door?

Well, whatever the reason, it meant that I could slip out and avoid detection by legions of constables that seem intent on making a name for themselves by arresting me. I take it as a testament to good sense within the police that those sent to surround and watch me were not of any rank. It's nice to see that they are growing in wisdom, well save for the issuing of the arrest warrant and still employing Fred...

I was now on my way to try and discover what, if any, involvement that Sykes had with Patrick's murder. I wasn't in the greatest of moods to be running around chasing wild geese at this stage but so far neither Mitch nor Anthony had any reason to lie to me, other than the fact that they didn't like Sykes.

The idea of gang territory expansion is always a dangerous one. Either it involves taking the territory from another gang, which leads to months of violence and retaliation or in some cases years of bloodshed with people getting caught in the middle. This is not very good for business as people become too scared of going outside to need my services. The other, and slightly more terrifying prospect is that the gang would expand into territory that no gang currently holds, that is free and moderately law abiding areas of the city.

The reason this was slightly more terrifying is that the free area of the city next to the Snake Devil's territory just happens to be where I live. In taking over free areas of the city there tends to be a lot more violence from and directed towards civilians and as stupid and annoying as people are, I wasn't about to let those who lived near me suffer under that.

I decided that in order to find Sykes, having him come to me would make my life easier. This is surprisingly difficult to do as most gang bosses don't reply to RSVPs. I couldn't risk walking into his territory either as I would most likely be shot on sight, so my first course of action was to find the nearest bar and have myself a very long drink.

Isn't it wonderful when you happen to find some of the top generals of a Snake Devil gang boss playing poker in the back room of a bar that you can hold for ransom?

Hunting the Priest Killer - Day 1

With the capture of Henry A. Weldon out of the way and no new, interesting work heading my way and by interesting I mean well paying, I now have the time to hunt down the scumbag responsible for killing Patrick.


My first idea was to see what the police knew about the whole affair. There are two ways of learning about what the police know: 1) You take the officer in charge out for dinner or drinks, get him drunk and ask him or 2) You break into the police station and look at the case files. Since the officer in charge of the investigation was Harry Lee, it wasn't a good idea to get him drunk. Mainly because last time we had been in a bar together, Fred may have ended up throwing Harry through the window. We're all keen not to have a repeat of that incident.


Breaking into the police station isn't all that hard if you happen to have the keys of one nameless sergeant, who has always been very careless about where he leaves things lying around.    Not that I got the idea for this from watching Bill & Ted... Still if Fred finds out I have them he, at least, won't send me to military school in Alaska.


There are also perfect times for breaking into case files, namely lunchtime. For some reason the filing room is completely unmanned between the hours of 12 and 1 so it didn't take much to slip in and look over the notes.


All evidence suggested that the killing was gang related. No leads had been found as to which gang was responsible or what the provocation was. It's always so much fun to get so much information. 


Interestingly it was still useful in some small part. No gangs are known to operate in this particular part of town, especially not within spitting distance of my office and flat. There are also only three gangs that could operate in the area as it means they don't have to cross into anybody else's territory to get there. This did help a lot, so I just had to narrow it down to one gang and then maybe two or three morons who had made the biggest mistake of their lives.


Time to go talk and see what my friend Mitch has to say.

Easter & Patrick

Why is it that chocolate seems to have found it's way into every form of main stream societies celebrations? The shelves of shops seemed to be packed to overflowing with the stuff months before big calendar events and people wonder why there is an obesity problem...


I have no big problem with people celebrating religious events, I would rather not go around upsetting God in his heavens when there are enough people on earth whose wrath seems to be aimed my way. I'd rather not invoke any higher power's displeasure as well. What I do have a problem with is the way that people seem to think that a religious festival is an excuse for a holiday and to celebrate and try to make me join in...


I'm not religious, my faith is in my guns and my own intelligence. I was raised that way, no one has ever spoken to me about God to try and convince me otherwise, most have just assumed that I am a terrible sinner beyond saving I think. The closest any one has come is the pastor/priest/vicar whichever it is that Fred goes to see for spiritual guidance, a man named Patrick.


The man didn't preach at me, he talked to me, like a human being...the only other person who has ever done that really is Fred, well in my adult life at least. He asked me what I believed and why so I told him, didn't tell me I was wrong, didn't tell me to change my ways or how I needed to change my life before I ended up in hell (my father always said that's what church goers did). He simply said that he would pray for me.


I'm not sure what pull that would have with the Almighty but it felt nice to know that there might be someone looking out for, for no other reason than they wanted to. I found out two days ago that the guy was shot just round the corner from my office. Turns out he was coming to see me about something and didn't want to risk phoning. Fred had offered to come with him, but he'd said it couldn't wait. 


Whatever it was, somebody shut him up. That somebody obviously didn't know that they were going to kill the only person I have ever met that shows the world to not be a dark and dismal cesspool of evil. To take them from the world, from me has definitely got my attention. 


When I find them they are going to be praying for mercy, which is ironic really, since it's their fault that all of my mercy died when they killed Patrick.