Time to Buy!

Well, I’d gained a lot of points, enough to buy Veins of Iron as well, which I did. But I still had a ‘meetup’ with Frannie at another bar on Wednesday, where I’d either get my ass ****, or she’d start going after people I cared about. I could maybe buy myself some time with a drinking session where I kept myself under control, or arrange some work issue to buy time, but I needed a fucking solution. At least I would no longer instantly fall to her.

By the end of the week, I needed to deal with a pimp, who was running a brothel out of an apartment building five blocks from my fucking house. One protected by the Penguin.

I needed a quest list like a game would usually give me, but unfortunately, that was populated with sex-crazed idiocy about fucking Kianna and Asa together…not you know, the life and **** shit I had to deal with.

The problem was, my brain was trapped in a loop on the pimp issue. I’d seen the place a couple of times, and it wasn’t terribly subtle, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It had the little marker up in the corner, an umbrella and an up-to-date ‘I support the GCPD’ sticker, so calling the cops would just result in it getting round-filed and maybe my phone number getting passed to the Penguin, depending on circumstance.

Based on what she’d told me, the place was run by Kenny Lee, and some of the girls did come from some out of state. Kenny reported to Jay, the middle child of Penguin’s trio of lieutenants. Less important than Raven, but more influential than Lark. I might be able to get the FBI interested, given the inter-state nature, but that wasn’t doing shit in a week. The IRS, likewise. Even if they recognized the problem, they’d most likely take a pay off, or have the same problem I did.

Okay, what about the street? That territory was pretty close to the edge of Penguin’s turf, butting up against Black Mask’s. If that block changed hands, the brothel would get shut down, or change ownership, dealing with the pimp. But a war like that would have other casualties.

****…even if I knew someone who could do that, and I didn’t, you then had a problem of what to do with the assassin, who might try to ****, or rob you. Also, I couldn’t afford it at this point. I didn’t know how much it cost, but a lot more than I had…though Kianna owned her house. It wasn’t in a great part of town, but--no, I didn’t know what it cost, or who I could trust, that was dumb.

Doing it myself was even dumber. I had a gun, but it was registered. I could buy one on the street, but that wasn’t safe and wasn’t smart. I could handle myself, but this guy had a crew of four and was one of the Penguin’s thugs. Even putting aside the whole **** thing, winning that fight wasn’t likely and Penguin might look into it, which was the opposite of what I wanted. Kat needed to be invisible to be useful. And survive.

My brain circled the problem endlessly, until Diamond gave me a call. I was surprised, but it was only 9 at night. We’d gone to bed real early. She was finally on her way back, issue resolved via a donation to the camp, and she was wondering if I was free tomorrow to make up for the night we’d missed.

I seized on the distraction. And frankly, the hope that either her capstone would help me out of this mess, or that the points would somehow help, though I wasn’t seeing anything obvious in the store.

I agreed, choosing the hooker role-play, hoping for, I dunno, inspiration? She wanted to do it at a fancy hotel, which was fine. She’d leave the key to room in her car, which she’d remote unlock for me when I got there. Fancy.

In the end, I had to take a sleeping pill to get to sleep.