Description: Duke needs some professionals for his assault on Kain's criminal empire. He has an assassin, he has a ninja, and he has ground guys. But there is one kind of professional that he has not recruited, if recruit is even the right word. He needs muscle, some one to destroy the very foundations of Kain, and even Southtown. And no one would be better than the Syndicate most dangerous hired hitman, Ryuji Yamazaki...
This was not a good day for Mr. Klager.
The slender, black-haired man paced around the linoleum floor of the kitchen, fiddling with his mustache nervously. The place was dimly lit with the yellow light of a single hanging bulb, the place clean, but sharing the soft dinginess and wear unescapable for a kitchen this old. Mr. Klager was dressed in a wife-beater, brown slacks without a belt, and a pair of sneakers. He was frightened. Fear was pouring out of ever square inch of his body. And the baritone rumble from the dining room made it clear what was his terror.
"My Coffee, Mr. Klager."
The deep rumble cuts through the whole of the house, snapping Mr. Klager out of his desperate pacing. Immediately, his eyes snap to the percolating coffee pot on the stovetop. A rather high-pitched voice comes from the nervous man as he calls back. "Just a minute! I need to get a clean mug!" He snaps towards the cupboards, flailing with the door as he fumbles for a mug. There weren't many left; the wife had broken most of the dishes throwing them at him. He reaches into the cupboard, pulling out the only mug that was spared in the rage. A large white mug, she got him for their anniversary two years back. #1 Hubby, with a big heart on it. He pauses a moment staring at the mug... before casting his glance on another item in the cupboard.
A small box of rat poison.
Mr. Klager was a desperate man, a frightened man, a man backed into corner by his own devices. He had no choice. He would be a marked man. But he could run away. He could take his wife, they could flee the country. Canada. They didn't have crime in Canada. Grabbing the box, he takes it to the pot. Mr. Klager powders the arsenic into the coffee pot, lacing it with the sweet-tasting poison. Taking the mug, he pours the coffee in the mug... and adds another dash of the poison into the mug. Taking the coffee pot and mug, he places it on a tray. Swallowing hard, he takes the tray, and moves out of the kitchen, into his dining room.
"Took you long enough, Mr. Klager."
The voice greets Mr. Klager as he enters the dining room. . The dining was thinly furnished, but still clean. The lavender wallpaper was peeling in the corners, yes, and the lights were dim. But the beige carpets were unstained, despite their worn state. The table was a long, wooden table, perfect for parties. The Klager household was once known for its parties. Nobody came to parties anymore. The Klager couldn't afford them anymore. They barely could make ends meet, if it wasn't for the charity of a stranger.
The very stranger sitting at the end of the table.
Duke sits at the far end of the table, dressed in his business formal: A three pieced suit of black and red, with black shoes. His eyes were violently yellow, his hair tinged with blonde against black. But his eyes were dead focused on the thin man placing the tray before him. Duke does not thank him, as Mr. Klager steps back, watching Duke warily. Without hesitation, the crime boss takes the coffee, and takes a sip. His eyes go wide, and narrow sharply. Turning to face Klager, he snarls.
"I didn't ask for sugar in my coffee."
Eyeing him hotly, Duke sips the coffee again, growling. "Worthless. You had one simple job to do, and you managed to screw it up." Klager swallows hard, trembling a bit. "I-I-I I remembered you said you liked it dark, and sweet! I thought you wanted it dark and sweet-" The crime lord growls, instructing Klager to shut up. The thin man obeys, as Duke sips his drink again. "You never know the difference between what people think, and what they mean. You thought that when you borrowed money for your gambling problem, it meant you paid it back without interest. You thought when we meant an extension, that meant you could dick around, without paying for THAT interest. Well, Mr. Klager, you earn our interest."
"And I expect Hell to pay!"
Duke rolls the black drink in his mouth, the sharp bite of the poison cutting into his mouth harmlessly. Duke turns to look at the frightened man, eyes burning. "I gave you a choice, Mr. Klager, when you begged me to do anything but break your legs. I had to make a meeting with someone. Someone had to go to him with some money, to entice him for visit me at a secure, neutral location. One of you was going to have to escort my business man to meet with my associate. One of you was going to accompany him with the money, and deliver the money, leaving the other to stay home, and be the host. I gave you the choice between you and your wife for meeting with my associate."
"You picked your wife."
Duke sips the coffee again, before turning to the doorway out of the room. "Now stand by the door. Our guest will be arriving soon." Mr. Klager trembles, scooting back a moment, indecisive of whether to obey... and whether he added enough poison. "Y-y-you mean my wife, a-a-a-and your employee too, r-r-right?" Duke stares back into the stooge's eyes, his yellow eyes burning violently. And then, he cracks a smirk. A vile smirk, a cruel smirk. And then, he responds with a slow, deliberate rumble.
"Our guest will be arriving soon."
It took him awhile to decide exactly what he wanted to do.
Now, it was relatively well known that anyone--and I mean anyone--who came to one of Ryuji Yamazaki's favorite little underspots is going to have to be ready for a good time. That's the kind of guy he was, the kind of guy he is, born and bred in the flesh. The only guy who'd managed to get away with asking Yamazaki for anything without a scratch is localized pretty much to guys whose last name is Howard and first name is Geese. Seeing as how the main albatross isn't really kicking around Southtown much these days.. well, kind of leaves Yamazaki at the relative top of the foodchain, at least in his book. Unfortunately, it also leaves him bored as hell. And Yamazaki can be so rough when he doesn't have anything more pressing to meet his needs.
Imagine his surprise when somebody was thoughtful enough to send a pair of legs and a suitcase full of cash to his favorite table at the La Nina.
Blood trailed up every wall of the ruined strip club. Bouncers, dancers and patrons alike lay still and motionless all over, broken and still bodies laying in various states of repose and undress throughout the entire club. It's like a localized bomb went off, strippers laying unconscious next to bent poles and bouncers were pinned underneath expensive lighting rigs. Men, women, tough guys and skinny guys. Guys who climb on rocks.
Pretty much anybody who did or did not like hot dogs got their asses handed to them tonight.
The bloodtrail goes all the way back to the dressing rooms, where more bodies lay broken and bleeding in the halls. Really, it's sort of a mistruth to say that it took him awhile to decide what he wanted to do. It's just that it took Yamazaki a long time to do it. A very long time.
And then it took him twice as long to do it again.
Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end, and it's only when Yamazaki's Seiko starts beeping at him, warning him of the impending time. "Shit, that's my cue." The gangster stood, his hand leaving a bloodied streak on the edge of the mirror he used as a handhold, turned sideways and knocked off the wall in the mass of broken furniture. Buttoning his pants with the sort of annoyed disposition attributed to lions discovering rivals on their pridelands, he sniffs quietly. His breathing is even an steady, and aside from several long scratches on his sides and arms, he is otherwise completely fine. Better than, in fact.
"Now listen, sweetness," Yamazaki starts, licking a trail of dried blood from his hand and slicking back his mop of unruly blonde hair. "Daddy's gotta go to work, now, make some money to take you someplace nice." There is no response from the only other occupant in the room. She doesn't even blink. It seems a little pointless, because aside from the shredded lace and shattered furniture all over the place, there is also roughly a Japanese executive evening's worth of spending money sprayed all over the cheap bloodstained carpet in nonsequential bills. He slides his shirt back on, a skin-tight affair that barely restrains his muscles.
"So, don't wait up, and remember to lock the door. I'll let myself in." he laughs a little. It's not a pleasant sound. "Oh!" he snaps his fingers. "Before I forget." He throws a handkerchief down into the mess. "Do yourself a favor before I get back. Put some ice on that, will you? Heheheheh..."
A distressed chicken walks past, and is booted unceremoniously in the ass by Yamazaki on his way out.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, he's in Klager's house.
Or more appropriately, just outside it, kicking the door in.
"Fe Fi Fo Fum," Yamazaki growls, cracking knuckles like they were oak trees.
"Who wants my size 13 broken off in their sternum?"
He glares menacingly at the first person to look at his wild and bloodstained hair daringly.
The thin man didn't expect it to go down like this.
He didn't think he heard a car. He was expecting a car. He goes down the beige-wallpapered walls, the faint floral patterns at the ceiling and baseboard. He walks pass the side entry to the living room, passed the little kitschy pictures of puppies, that his wife loved so much. But he doesn't even make it to the door. He just sees the door get knocked down, torn free of the deadbolt, the chains, the hinges, and the reinforced steel brace bar. The man's glance is fleeting.
Mr. Klager is the first person to look at his wild and bloodstained hair daringly.
The focus shifts from the hair to the those eyes, and he immediately knows his mistake. He stares at the ground, at his feet instinctively. But the eyes are burned in his memories. The yellow eyes, the snake eyes, and.... his eyes. He doesn't run; flight or flight has turned to paralysis, the man trembling like a rabbit. As the mustached man opens his mouth wordlessly to respond to the stranger who had just entered his home, a voice drifts from down the hall, to the dining room.
"Mr. Klager, please escort my guest inside."
Duke sips his coffee again, smacking his lips again. Oh, he knew that dealing with Yamazaki was a dangerous matter. He wasn't afraid of the notorious hitman. He was just... wary. Careful as a lion tamer would be with one of his new pets. Yamazaki was very passionate about his work, almost as much as he is with his free time. He just needed to let off some steam; and Duke need to make sure that release was expendable. Mr. Klager picked his wife to be the release. Duke grimaces at his mug.
And this coffee tasted just awful.
Yamazaki's eyes narrow as he looks at Mr. Klager.
He knows that look. He grins. Wide.
"It's a FUCKING fashion statement!!"
And then he picks up what's left of the door and tries to, quite pointedly, throw it narrow-wise through his, unbeknownst to him, ill-fated host. It's actually not really his main concern. To be fair, it's really just how Yamazaki says hello when he's feeling particularly amped up. And, simple sad fact of it is, after the night Yamazaki's had, he's definitely feeling very, very punchy. Fortunately, it also means Yamazaki falls just short of continuing through him or any of the other guys unlucky enough to be on his way through to the person he was really looking for, the guy whose pockets all that wonderful money came out of. He knows it didn't come out of that poindexter's change purse.
Wouldn't fit.
Besides, Yamazaki wouldn't bother with any motherfucker pussy enough to carry a change purse.
"Don't nobody need to escort me anywhere," Yamazaki growls, with the kind of sub-human bile attributed to the stomachs of sharks after they get hauled onto the boat and cut open. It follows to purpose that Yamazaki steps into the room smoothly with Duke, pulling on the wrists of his fighting gloves. That Klager kid had better hope to every God he knows that he got knocked out or killed by the door, else he's going to be in so much goddamn trouble for interrupting Yamazaki after the fact.
"I get in there, and then motherfuckers get themselves a decision to make."
Yamazaki is the consummate gangster. Even though he is quite explosively violent, now he has all the tenor of a predator, someone who uses something a little more than violence and something a little less than violation to get his point across. When he's in the mood to talk... well, just try to not listen and see what happens. When business is on his mind.
"They get to decide how much money they want to pay me to make me go away. And see, everybody's happy. It's a Kodak-fuckin'-Hallmark moment. Just like Christmas. Cept without the chicken or the motherfucking cake."
This was not a good day for Mr. Klager.
There is a sickening moan as Klager takes the door clean in the chest. He shouldn't have looked him in the eye. Pain nearly overtakes the terror, but as with anything involving Yamazaki, pain never quite catches up to the fear. Not for a lack of trying, of course. As he collapses against the wall, fortunately out of Yamazaki's way, the man moans, sobbing lightly as he bleeds out on the floor.
Of course, none of this was any business of the Duke's
The crime boss does not rise for Yamazaki. Instead, he pours himself more coffee, topping off the mug with the toxic brew. When Yamazaki wants to talk, you let him talk. When he acts, you let him act. He was not an agent of the Syndicate proper; he was a man who was amused by what he Syndicate did, and the Syndicate simply spoke the right words and made the proper offerings. Duke understood this, and respected some of it. But as Yamazaki lays out his flat terms, the Duke pauses, reflecting on the offer briefly, before replying. "That sounds exactly like the job I need you to take care of."
"Except for the part where they decide how much money it takes to make you go away."
Duke's yellow eyes focuses on the maniacal gangster. There was a method to men like this. If you were prey, meat like the Klager family, you didn't draw his attention. If you caught his attention, you distract him with something, usually other meat. But there were certain men, like Geese, who were not meat, per say. Oh, they were well and considered prey. But unlike most prey, they fought back too hard.... and unlike most prey, they were ready to offer more meat. Duke fancied himself better than Geese. Duke very slowly casts his gaze behind Yamazaki, focusing at the doorway as the pitiful groan.
As it turns out, Mr. Klager is not lucky.
"Ah, I see you met Mr. Klager!" Duke begins, motioning behind Yamazaki to the man in the blood-marked wifebeater. Unfortunately for Mr. Klager, judging by the amount of bleed, he only suffered a flesh wound, and the wind knocked out of him. And even more unfortunately, he was meat that did not play dead. Duke focuses back at Yamazaki. "Please, make yourself comfortable, there is details we need to attend to. Mr. Klager and his wife were generous to give us his home for the evening. Mrs. Klager works at the La Nina, you see, as a dancing girl. She was the one who fetched you." He casts a glance back to Mr. Klager.
"I hope Mr. Klager will be just as accommodating to you." "
See, Ryuji Yamazaki knew better than most the elaborate food chain that comprised Southtown. Again, he knew himself to be at the top of that chain, and is completely willing to demonstrate it to anyone who didn't know. But being a part of that predator-prey relationship for so long, you start to intuit a few things. Like the difference between a limp-dicked nobody on the ground weeping out the last of the tears their mommas gave em, and people who had seen enough to know better. People who were carved out of wood.
That's the kind of guy Yamazaki faces when he gives Duke a one-eyed squinty glare. This guy's one of those smooth types. Oh, don't get him wrong. Yamazaki can be smooth too. But he's also a little impatient. "Ehn?" he grunts, looking over his shoulder at the puddle of estrogen he stepped over on his way in.
"Oh, that puss?" he recognizes.
Wait. "She had a husband?"
He grins, rancid.
"Didn't feel like it."
At that point, Yamazaki seems inordinately annoyed by the groaning pile of puke. "Shut up over there before I reach across this room and go Sagat-in-a-Hurricane-of-Tigers on your ass!!" he roars after Klager, before unceremoniously grabbing the closest chair or minion who doesn't move fast enough and plants them squarely on the other side of the table from the yellow-eyed crime boss. He does so in a very earthy fashion as well, planting first chair then body with rough drops and thuds.
He slings his massive frame around the chair, sitting in it backwards just to get a more even look, giving Duke an eye to eye.
"So. You're jawing a lot about this job deal, throwing around a lot of green. Maybe you want to start getting to the point of it before I get the bug too and start throwing around a lot of red." When Yamazaki grins, it's almost enough to cause a local landfill to be opened up in his honor.
No.
The only reason he stops sniveling is the raw white-knuckled terror that Yamazaki run through him. Mr. Klager didn't want to believe it. He was making up stories. He was just trying to bust his balls. His wife was just in a safehouse, far away, in holding. Just in case Mr. Klager didn't do his job right. He doesn't think about the poisoned coffee pot. He just leans against the door frame, trembling in fear, in silence.
Out of the notice of the men, for now.
The Duke's yellows eyes do not break as they meet Yamazaki's own. There was a lack of minions here; any liabilities that Duke had to spent were already used up, save for the vestiges of hope that Mr. Klager clung to. But there were plenty of chairs. It was, after all, a place to hold parties. Duke snarls a bit, clutching the coffee cup tightly. "Then I'll make it clear."
"I need you to help break Kain Heinlein."
A barely restrained rage begins to boil up from beneath the crime lord's face, a fire searing behind those yellow eyes. "See, I don't know how things have gone for you in Southtown. But there is an unfortunate fact that the Syndicate, under Geese's leadership, was humiliated by Kain. That all our hard work was undermined because he was scared off. And now, here we are, doing business in some bum's dining room, because Mr. Howard was such a damned coward-:
There is a crunch as Duke crushes the mug in his hand.
Duke pauses, inspecting the remains of the broken mug, the shattered heart clattering to the table top. "I'm preparing to put pressure in Southtown as we speak. It is going to cost a lot a blood to dig Kain's people out. As I understand, you are very good at blood." Duke slams a fist on the table, glaring at the shuddering Mr. Klager. "Fetch me a new mug." Turning back over to Yamazaki, his brow furrow, speaking with the utmost seriousness.
"Do you need anything, while Mr. Klager is in the kitchen?"
Yamazaki wasn't really paying attention to Klager, or much of anybody else right now. Once the little doormat stopped snivelling, he ceased to exist in Yamazaki's view. Sort of like henchmen that may or may not be here. It's sort of like flies and gnats--if they're on the other side of the room, they may as well not even be there at all. It's only when they start to make themselves an annoyance that they get crushed. Doesn't too much matter to Yamazaki either way. He's even run into a bit of a generous streak as of five or six seconds ago, which explains why he focuses on the crime boss before him instead of picking on a nobody any further than he already has.
Of course, it could have something to do with Duke breaking his coffee cup with rage as he talks about breaking Kain's grip in Southtown.
Fall of Geese Tower was quite awhile ago. Yamazaki knew, because it took him about a year to pick all of the rebar out of his teeth. Since then, business has gotten a little slow on his side of the world--Geese was a little too far, and nobody in Kain's syndicate was going to hire him. For good reason, too--Yamazaki wasn't really the 'let's wait and do our hair in the women's bathroom' type. Bunch of fucking catty stooges. So when Duke apparently displays a good bit of contempt for the new world order that Daddy Puffs-a-Lot has imposed on Southtown, it gets Yamazaki's attention.
He grins.
"Well well. Look who's looking to become Geese's favorite little duster jockey," Yamazaki crows darkly.
His eyes settles on the pot of lethal coffee with the sort of disdain afforded to recovering alcoholics. "Don't need nothing but a new box of Magnums," Yamazaki mutters under his breath. It was sort of a falsehood--Yamazaki didn't even carry. "Listen, ah--fuck, I'm bad with this kinda thing. What's your name again? Scarlet Pimpernel? Lemon-Eye Duncan? Rage Cherry? --Whatever. Listen. I'd love to help out. I really would." He points one massive claw of a hand at Duke, each finger measured in tank caliber. "But you know, you sound just like the punk kids I threw out of third story windows for thinking they could outdo Geese. Like it or not, Captain Sunshine runs the place. So until you actually kick Lord Crunchberry out, you don't get to talk like you're going to win."
He pauses thoughtfully.
"So. Turns out I'm not really interested in this whole army-and-attrition scene. Tell you what I do like, though. What I -need-.." and his voice drops so low, "..is a good bloodbath. See, Kain's so fucking boring he made my balls blue for blondes ever since. Shit like that, it turns out I'm pretty opposed to. Can't get any decent action in this fucking city anymore. Get me a good fucking fight, Viggo..."
He slowly nods his head.
"...And you and me, we can -talk- about that shit."
Duke's own experience with the fall wasn't much better.
Klager, taking advantage of the lull in danger, and flees the room, even managing a pathetic bow or two. Escaping to the kitchen, Duke simply listens, and mulls. Yamazaki's creative titles do not offend the crime boss. Yamazaki's unique status of making 'fucking insane' a professional title allowed him certain liberties, much like how Duke's unique status allowed his various open and unopened orifices to remain unviolated by a manner of objects, limbs, and/or organs. Or as Yamazaki likely considers them as, whorefices. The mention of duster jockey raises Duke's hackles visibly, but he swallows his anger slowly, chokingly.
He had his own professional standards to adhere to.
The dark-skinned enforcer steeples his fingers, as he waits for his coffee, and listens to Yamazaki's inane babblings that could very mean life or death. "You want a good fucking fight?" Duke repeats, like Yamazaki was just some clown on the street, asking him why he should pay his money on time. The crime boss stands up, eyes burning with rage as he places his fingertips on the table.
"Let me ask you this."
"I want to know what I have to give you." Duke begins, clutching an invisible throat with his right hand. Tightening his fingers, he begins to fume. "I want to know what I need for you to have, so you will latch onto Mr. Heinlein throat with you god damn teeth. I want you dig in deep, no matter how much money he throws at you, how many men he loses, how much he -begs- you, you don't let go until that last spark of light leaves his precious criminal empire. And then." Duke slumps back down to his chair.
"And then we can go back to the old Syndicate ways."
Oh, he knew he was pushing all of the wrong buttons for Duke, but the Syndicate enforcer boss was clever. Kept his cool. Cos, the simple fact of the matter is, Yamazaki was always spoiling for a fight. He wasn't the type who got tired, who needed a break, who needed a chance to think. Sitting on your laurels all day thinking is the kind of shit idiots who got something to lose do. The only thing Yamazaki's ever been afraid of missing out on was a good time.
Yamazaki turns his head at a bizarre angle to track Duke as the man stood to his full commanding height, one that matched Yamazaki's own. His grin is twisted at that angle, and seems entirely wrong. His voice is tiny and small, diminutive and strained to an unnatural extent as he responds. The juxtaposition is not the product of any particular feeling of intimidation he feels. It's quite the opposite. That freakish tone he takes.. yeah, it's true.
Yamazaki always wants to fight.
"You want to know something about me, huh?" he wonders aloud in that warped voice, a rottweiler on a leash. "I'm not so good at givin' out advice. But this one's for free: I'm not the kind of guy you want to write a blank check to. Cos... it'll cost ya."
He snickers. "It'll cost ya everything you got."
Yamazaki leans over against the chair, wagging a meaty finger admonishingly. "That's the first thing you ought to know. I'm just--you know, it's a sob story. I don't do well with negotiating. See, I'm just not that good at holding back. Men, women, children. I'm a ruiner. Anything I touch, anything I see.. it belongs to me until I get bored of it. Simple fact of it is, if I don't like what you're paying, I'm just gonna take it out your ass. And then I'm going to take it out of Kain's ass. And anybody else who gets in my way."
He's not really the type to resort to simple posturing and complicated words. Way as he sees it, there's no negotiating around him. He'll take what he wants, and do what he wants. Yamazaki considers himself a disaster. And you can't bribe a diaster. In either way.
He laughs, this time.
"See, Connery, I'm a professional as well."
Duke did not like it when Yamazaki had his moments of lucidity. He could deal with a normal street psycho. He had Mad Gear working for christs sake. But Yamazaki... Yamazaki was like a divine force of crazy. Street crazy was at least consistent. Yamazaki?
Even his crazy wasn't a sure thing.
Duke takes a deep breath in, and exhales slowly. He runs his lips on the inside of his lips, wrinkling his nose. "I don't think you quite understand the scope what I need you to do. This isn't Geese giving a light touch, letting out a little chaos to scare the locals, but keeping everything he owns safe. I don't want a little bit of chaos ruining Kain's little playhouse of fun. See, that's his game." Duke does something that very few living, conscious men ever attempt. Duke points a finger at Yamazaki.
And he accuses him.
"What have you been doing in Southtown, Yamazaki? You've been sitting down, top dog in town. Nobody dares to challenge you! Not even the Syndicate wants to dare draw your ire! Oh, look at you, the big man, practically a -made man- in Kain's eyes." Flames of chi begin to erupt over his body, pouring out from his pores as it falls to the ground, searing the carpeting. "And I look in the news. Happy couples. Children playing on the slides. Oh sure, there is a few robberies; but everything was insured, so nothing really was lost."
"And that's the game he plays."
"He makes everything safe, he makes everything secure, he makes everything -normal- as long as it goes through him. It's his little piece of paradise, the new natural order of Southtown. His pet project makes it so everything is a tight and neat little game. Everything goes to plan." Duke hammers his fist upon the table, the legs beginning to split with every blow. The house begins to thunder to it's foundations as the flames begin to roar higher. "If I showed up there with twelve ball-busters, every single civilian would call up their local gangster to thump us out. We got -nothing- there. We are the damned Southtown Syndicate, and we don't even run -numbers- in the fucking city. You've gotten soft with Kain in charge, I mean listen to you. You are telling me to keep you on your leash, to leave the dog on the chain? No, Yamazaki."
"I'm breaking that chain."
The crime boss sweeps his arm back, leaning over the steadily collapsing table. "You say it'll cost me everything? I got not a damn thing worth having until I take back Southtown, and make this a proper Southtown Syndicate. I don't give a damn about the children, I don't give a damn about the woman, and I sure as the devil that I don't care a damn about the men! They don't owe us a damn, and if they think they are safe in Kain's little utopia? They deserve everything that's coming to them. You say you are a ruiner of everything you touch?"
"I want you ruin everything that Kain has laid his dainty little hands on."
Duke calms down briefly, the hot flames dying down just enough as he leans back in his chair. "So you want blood? I can give you quick and easy work." Duke pulls out a piece of paper from his suit jacket, and tosses it towards Yamazaki. "Two things at the harbor in Southtown. The first is that every warehouse is either working for Kain, or paying his people money. I want you to commit some insurance fraud, you understand? I want every clown that thinks paying Kain's people means protection to be proven wrong. I want fear, I want blood.
"And I want everybody to see it."
Duke pauses a second, adjusting his suit. "The second bit of work is child's play, it's almost beneath you. M. Bison was roughing up one of my coverts. He was punching one of my ninjas. I don't want Shadaloo snooping around my city, thinking they can opt in with another 'joint front,' with any semblance of safety. You pick up that clown's scent? I want you to show Shadaloo what happens when you fuck around with Syndicate business."
And the men are interrupted.
Klager remerges from the kitchen, trying so hard not to make a sound. But he decides passive will work with this men, so he clears his throat. In one hand, a new coffee cup, boring, blue, and plastic. And in the other hand? A box of magnums, just like what daddy said. "I, uh, got the new coffee mug, and your, uh, the condoms wanted, sir."
And judging by the label, he thought daddy was 'ultra sensitive'
Yamazaki grins.
This time, it's not the kind of sickening shark grin that Ryuji likes to favor people with from time to time when he's feeling particularly joyous. It's a genuine self-effacing, polite smile. It's there for only a kitten's fart of a second, but it is there, flickering into view just about the time that Duke accuses him of going soft. He doesn't show any overt signs of irritation, accepting Duke's opinion as chastely as a schoolmarm. Uh oh.
"Well," Yamazaki reasons, "I can see how you'd think that. What, with all the TV you're watching and shit."
"But there's a flaw in your argument, Spock."
"See, I don't think you heard me right," Yamazaki starts, hitting the backrest of the chair with one hand and a big meaty slap. "Shit isn't about what you want and what you get. There isn't any amount of money that you can pay me to give one single solitary fuck about what 'you want.' Nobody's that rich..."
Standing up, he pointedly takes the box of condoms and the coffee cup from Klager. He thanks him. And then he throws them pettily across the room. "The fuck did i say? Get outta here. Fucking twerp." If Klager sticks around any longer, Yamazaki is just going to pin him to the ground by his neck underneath his shoe and strangle him to death on the spot, right there, as if to prove his point while in the process of making it known. "Anyway. This is about a hundred words too fucking many for my taste, so listen up: Quit while you're ahead."
At which point Yamazaki rips the chair off of the ground and tries to break it squarely over Duke's beard.
"BECAUSE THERE AIN'T ANY CHAIN BIG ENOUGH FOR ME!!!" he shrieks, high and girlish.
Ah hell.
Left unrestrained, Yamazaki will break the table in two, and probably throw the coffeepot out of a window. "YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST RUN YOUR FUCKING MOUTH AT ME ALL DAY TO GET ME TO ROLL OVER? You think I'm a mental case??? YOU FUCK! Call up Count Chocula with that dictionary bullshit because I will eat your liver, Kool-Aid!!! I'll find you, I'll find your friends, and I'll stuff every last fucking one of them with what's left of Kain and his Seven Dwarves like a raw turkey!!!!" He's well and fully on a rampage. It might be wise to get out of that seat before Yamazaki reduces it to powder as well.
Sometimes, intimidation is not the best way.
The same trouble turned up with Li. Duke was always an enforcer; whenever he wanted anything, he would throw his muscles around. Breaking bones, breaking bodies, breaking wills. Duke was a brute; and for a moment, he thinks he can bully the monster that is Yamazaki. He thinks he is Geese, no, better than Geese.
But then he takes a chair to the face.
This wasn't the first time Duke was hit in the face with a chair. It was an occupational hazard in the field; Duke has endured many chairs to the face over his life. This time, though, he reels. He doesn't get knocked away, no, nor does he. He just seems confused, as if he wasn't hurt by the chair.
Simply surprised that he felt anything at all.
Dazed for a moment, he begins to focus again in time to realize that Yamazaki had gone into one of his legendary rampages. Mr. Klages huddles in the corner. Duke... realized that he had lost control of the situation. And if he remained, one of them was going to end up in traction. An unfortunate ending.... that will not work for his plans at all. But despite inciting Yamazaki into the madness, Duke simply rumbles in that too deep baritone.
"Good."
He did agree to the job. Sort of. At this point, Duke had lost any chance to pretend he is Geese, without cracking skulls. He let the dog off his chain. Duke simply rises up from the chair, rubbing his mouth again as Yamazaki focuses his rage onto everything. "Show up whenever you feel like, then." He got the address, He got the targets. He won't make him go, he won't stop him from going. But Duke adds as he subtly picks up the pace
"But there is a paycheck for every skull you cave in."
Duke lets Yamazaki rip apart the dining room. He won't stop him from ripping the apart the house, either. But he does stop on the way out. "Mr. Klages." Duke begins, as he hovers over the thin man. As Klages looks up, Duke places a heel on his knee cap. And with the effort of squishing a bug, snaps the man's leg. There is a shriek of pain, as Duke lets the chaos unfold behind him. Fingering his own mouth, he pulls out a large, cancerous sore from his mouth. Dropping it on the man's quivering face, the immortal crime boss simply states. "Don't try poisoning my coffee."
And with that, Duke begins to leave house...
And leaves the enraged Yamazaki with Mr. Klages and his house.
Mr. Klages whimpers, trying to drag himself out of the dining room. He could make it to the door. His wife would be there, with the car. A nice red sports car. His arms stop cooperating. The injury Yamazaki opened up with had finally caught up. Sweat pools on his brow, his eyes well up with tears."No..." He mutters.... "No!"
And then he turns, to face Yamazaki.
Within roughly twenty seconds, Yamazaki has reduced the entire section of the house he was in to nothing more than splinters and rubble. Ostensibly, he might /actually/ be pursuing Duke in an extremely roundabout way with his raving trail of mayhem, but it's not really very effective, as he seems to be more focused on breaking things and yelling than anything else. It's actually sort of an eminently reasonable situation. As long as Duke still has money in his pockets, and is making a concerted effort to stay out of Yamazaki's blast radius, Yamazaki isn't making too much of a huge deal of chasing him down and feeding him six or seven inches worth of a clothesiron.
That's the deal you make, and that's the deal you don't break.
Furthermore, he actually seems a little confused as Duke just kind of gets up and--doesn't even hit him or anything. Yamazaki's not really used to that, so it in and of itself is kind of a surprise, the mercenaniac staring at Duke with an asymmetric glare where both pupils in those bloodshot eyes never really quite matched. This particular enforcer was too cool, too reasonable. Too ...annoyingly boring. It was starting to kill Yamazaki's hardon.
Of course, then he hears the bones crack of a man who's been pissing him off all day.
Lunchtime.
Yamazaki points after Duke as he leaves, corded muscles tense to the point where you can almost see the individual tendons in his arm stand out. "Yeah well, you'd just better be sure not to run out of fucking money, scrub brush!!" He growls as Duke leaves, leaving only the annoying gibber of a soon to be dead man. He stands there, all six plus feet of him, watching Duke leave with a level degree of consternation. "Hunh." Lucidity comes hard to Yamazaki, of course. Really, there's only one thing that occurs to him to do next.
He picks up the 26 cubic foot refrigerator, ripping the water supply line out of the wall and leaving water spraying everywhere. The french doors dangle open, and two weeks worth of groceries tumble out onto the floor as he hefts the massive thing overhead, tearing muscles he didn't even know he had. He glares down at Klager. "You know, besides the fact that I'm getting paid for this, I really gotta thank you," he says, taking one massive step forward. "For me and your wife that is. We had a pretty good time. Shame she's married to a no-talent no-account dickless fuck like you, tho, eh?" He laughs, just barely keeping from gibbering, not unlike a hyena.
"Guess that's why they put erasers on pencils, right?"
He chokes, stifling a giggle.
"Let me show ya."
Duke will feel the impact from all the way in the car.
And each one after that.
There is only time for one, short scream.
Duke emerges to the front lawn of the house that Klager built. A long line of blood stains lead up the broken sidewalk. Next door, a large city bus was driven through the neighbor's front door. A pair of high-heeled legs poke out from underneath the front wheels. The windows of the bus are stained red, thick with blood. Duke ignores it, as he approaches the car.
He is greeted by a trained revolver from the driver.
The gunman's eyes go wide. "Duke! Sir!" Was the nervous response as the chauffeur lowers the handcannon, looking throughly embarrassed. The man glances to the house again, as another scream erupts. He swallows hard as the scream is followed by high pitched laughter. It is not clear if it is Yamazaki laughing, or the man. The crime boss, however, doesn't seem to want to find out. Grabbing the gun, he shoves the man towards the black car.
"Get in the car. Now."
Duke enters the back of the car, slamming the door shut. As the chauffeur stumbles into the driver's seat, Duke barks an order with the utmost sternness. "Drive." Is his immediate order. "Where to, boss?" The driver asks warily, staring out the window. "Anywhere. Far from here." Duke responds. A refrigerator explodes from the Klager's house, smashing through the bus and ripping out to the other side. Duke doesn't blink, but leans forward, speaking to the driver directly.
"-Now-"
Log created on 02:38:16 06/09/2013 by Duke, and last modified on 07:06:19 06/10/2013.