roleplay A Dream is Born Parts 1 - 5

[Expressman 19]

The Fasten Seat Belt sound chirped as Manus Blair dozed in his passenger seat, the 737-900 he was riding was shaking from rough air. He'd have preferred first-class, but startup companies rarely can afford those, so coach would have to do. Fine. 

Hours ago he was in Chile, representing business interests in his home state of California. That's what he did: he went places people generally didn't go, then he invested. And that's what he was doing now.

Paramo island is an extended part of Puerto Rico, a US Territory, and after a lengthly legal process the island attained Constitutional status. It was heavily rumored to be the next US state, beating Puerto Rico itself. Now people and business were pouring in. It was like the cool new toy, that accepts US currency, has a modern Western society, and where people drive on the right side of the road.

Laking an airport on the island itself, Magnus would have to land in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, and take a ferry to it.

He felt an elbow jab him gently.

"Would you like to set up a meeting with the local investors?" asked the woman sitting next to him.

Manus tried to open his eyes, blinking away the fog. He stretched.

"Laurie, you're a partner, not my secretary. Set it up and tell me where to be and when." he groaned.

She nodded and resumed tapping absently on her laptop.

Well, he was awake now. 

He had always represented various corporate or NGO interests, but this was different. Manus Industries. Yes. This time he was striking out on his own. He had a cocktail of friends, acquaintances and trust fund kids looking for passive income to help him get off the ground.

This was his turn.

 

Edited December 22, 2017 by Expressman
Spelling and title

[Expressman 19]

Victor Sarcoli deftly mashed his cigarette in the crystal ashtray while sipping his scotchon the rocks. He and the three men with him sat in the shade of the oceanside club.

He smacked his lips and continued their conversation.

“But we need a man on the ground. Someone as smart as a partner, but not a partner, and willing to live in that shithole. I don’t know that anyone like that exists.” He frowned as he inspected the cigarette butt, as if he held the key to his problem.

His partner, Alex Klein, stared into his own Mai Tai, as if looking for answers.

“That’s a tough one Vic,” He said, “but I… I might know the guy.” The three partners turned their attention to him.

“Tell me about this unicorn then.” Victor challenged.

“He’s smart. He’s good with money.” Alex continued. “He’s Irish… was in the IRA or Sin Fin or something like that in Dublin. So he’s street smart too. And he’s banned from Ireland so, he could use a place to land and some steady income, I think.”

Victor smiled, but it was a skeptical smile.

“But how do we know we can trust him with our money, and our interests?” he shot back.

“Well,” Alex said coolly, “Do you have anyone else who’s better?”

****
Manus smashed the accelerator as he powered through a 90-degree turn in the sleepy back
streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Two dingy cars roared behind him, with armed men inside.

Manus tapped his phone “Call Jones” he said loudly. “Calling Home” his phone replied, and
started dialing. “No no no, call…” Manus swerved around a parked truck.

“Hello?” said a voice from the phone. “Call you back!” replied Manus, and hung up.” He made
another hard turn.
“Joooones. Call Joooones.” He shouted to his phone. “Calling Jones” it replied.

“Hey?” said a voice. “Open the door now.” Manus ordered, “And be ready for company”

He hung up and made a hard right, mashing the accelerator again as his car’s engine complained.

In a few seconds he slowed, looked at his pursuers in his mirror, then turned into an open garage door. The two cars followed him into the garage, where they all stopped.

Manus got out, and started walking towards the cars. The man got out, aiming various pistols at him.

“Now calm down guys. We can either do business, or you’ll get hurt.”

The leader, a big man with a dark Brazilian complexion glanced around the room. There were about 25 men surrounding them, all armed. The big man instantly realized what he just fell for. He lowered his gun.

“Someday, we’re going to kill you Hefe.” he rasped.

Manus spread his arms imploringly. “What’s your problem? I’m just a businessman."

“You helped the policia.” the leader accused.

“You have policia too.” Manus replied. “That’s just how it works here. You know that.”

The leader shot Manus an icy stare.

“Cigars.” Manus proposed. The leader looked confused.

Manus reached into his pocket. All of the gang members began to react, but then remembered their situation.

Manus drew two cigars and a cigar cutter, neatly clipped the ends, then produced a zippo. He handed one of the cigars to the gang leader.

“Why would I smoke with you?” the leader protested.

“To celebrate our new deal.” Manus said. The leader looked confused now as he slowly took the cigar.

“What deal?” he asked with an air of suspicion.

Manus lit his own cigar.

“I’ve got 5,000 of these in a Conex container at the port. You can sell them on your corners along with your powder.”

The gang leader looked at the cigar, then put it in his mouth while Manus lit it.

“What’s the price?” the leader asked.

“That is the right question.” Manus replied with a smile.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Expressman
Formatting

[Expressman 19]

Blade rapped his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. He didn’t like waiting. At least, not this kind of waiting. He briefly took off his aviator sunglasses and wiped the sweat off his nose. Goddam Sao Paulo is hot. He had no working AC and the windows on his ‘92 F150 were down.

There she is. A woman, blonde, drove by quickly in her Honda Del Sol. Behind her was a Suburban with some unhappy characters in it. He started his engine and began to follow them.

After a few turns he stopped, letting them go on without him. He found a parking spot on the congested street, grabbed a guitar case, and hopped out of the pickup.

30 seconds later Blade was on the roof of the nondescript cement apartment, 5 stories up. He opened his guitar case to reveal a .300 Winchester Magnum with a sizeable scope. He wasn’t the kind of operator to carefully put a weapon together piece by piece, so the guitar case was his favorite way to move his weapons intact and ready to rock-n-roll.

He picked it up lovingly, along with a towel and a clip of ammo, then made his way to the edge of the building. He didn’t bother to extend the bipod, choosing rather to rest his weapon on the towel on the ledge of the building.

He peered down his scope, already ranged for 522 yards, and started to control his breathing.

In a minute a woman appeared in a 5th story apartment window. She opened it, looked out nervously, then sat down beside it, facing her door. Blade gingerly let his trigger finger curl around the trigger, his calm, slow breathing made him sound like a man asleep.

The door in the woman’s apartment burst open, and the two unhappy looking men stepped in and started talking angrily at the woman.

<Bang> bolt-action-pump, <bang>.

As he peered back through his scope, both the men were out of sight. Blood was sprayed on the door they had come through. The woman stood, slowly, and closed the window.

Blade dropped his mag, pumped out his chambered round, and collected it.

“This is private property.” A voice boomed behind him.

Blade spun onto his back, drawing a glock from his ankle holster and pointing it at the man.

“The hell do you want?” Blade demanded.

“I was going to say that you get off my property.” The man said, pausing a long time.

“But… uh. Hmm. You’re not government, are you.”

Blade didn’t expect this. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded, shaking his sidearm a little for emphasis.

“Manus. Manus Blair. I’m just a businessman here in town. And you are?”

Blade sized the man up carefully.

“Blade Holdin.” he answered.

Manus laughed. “What were your parents thinking?”

Blade frowned, but started to lower his gun, only to jerk it up again as Manus stepped towards him.

“Nah nah, it’s okay lad.” Magnus extended a hand.

Blade could see Magnus was carrying, but Magnus hadn’t show one sign of self-awareness that comes with a man ready to pull his sidearm in a flash. Hesitantly he lowered his piece and extended his free hand. Manus pulled him to his feet.

“Well I suppose you need to clean up here. How about an early dinner? I’ll buy.”

 

Edited December 16, 2017 by Expressman
Spelling

[Expressman 19]

Laurie Strode dropped her duffel bag, hopped up and down and shook her arms to try to regain circulation after having sat in cramped quarters for a few hours. It was the first time she had ever been on a military aircraft, a A-C-130 operated by the National Guard as assistance to Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders.

She shouldered her bag and trudged across the tarmac to a van that was waiting for them. Central Chile had another earthquake, and things were a mess. Laurie, an ER nurse in Philadelphia, was getting bored and wanted some adventure. That’s how she got roped into a short trip with MSF. And here she was, in a place called Puerto Montt, a place she hadn't even heard of till days earlier.

She small relief tent village was packed to overflowing. Anyone not awaiting surgery were being moved back out to the streets. Laurie found herself going down the street with a few other volunteers and a translator, helping people that were queued for the relief camp. As night came on Laurie was working herself to the bone. She barely scarfed down two granola bars since she landed. As the glow of the sun faded she felt herself becoming noticeably cold. She had forgotten both that the seasons were reversed in the southern hemisphere, and that central Chile was quite a ways toward the antarctic.

They began disseminating wool blankets but it soon became clear that many Chileans were in for a miserable night.

Just uphill from where they were Laurie noticed a warehouse. It was rather new and clean which stood out in stark contrast to most of the dingy cement village buildings around it. Laurie began to imagine how useful this building would be. She walked up to the chain link fence, crowned in barbed wire. It was padlocked. Laurie shook the fence in frustration, the chains jingling mockingly in the crisp cool air.

Light sliced across her as a door opened halfway. A man leaned out.

“Yes?” he asked.

Laurie wanted to just walk away, embarrassed. But she had to ask.

“We need this building for emergency purposes.” She said with all of the authority she could muster.

The man looked down the street, then at her.

“Okay.” he replied.

He stepped out the door and began walking towards the gate, fishing keys from his pocket.

Laurie was stunned. “Fine.” she snapped. “I mean, okay. I mean, thank you.”

The man opened the padlock, then swung the gate wide open. Then he walked over to a garage door and started to unlock that. He looked back at Laurie questioningly. She realized then she was just standing there.

“I’ll be right back” she said, then turned on her heel and started for the relief camp. Three very busy hours later most of the survivors had been moved into the warehouse. Laurie noticed the man watching. She walked over to him and stuck out her hand.

“Thank you, really.” She said. “This is very generous of you. I’m Laurie. I didn’t catch your name.” “Manus.” He said. “And this isn’t generous at all. This is entirely selfish.”

Laurie shot him a confused look, so he continued.

“This is a socialist country, Laurie. A business is only as safe as its relationship to the Mayor and the Bishop. The only way to secure my place here is to be generous.” He smiled. “And bribe a little bit.”

 

 

[Expressman 19]

“Why are we meeting here, and why are you buying me dinner?” The fat man asked through a muffled Russian accent. Corvus Black tapped his cigarette into the ashtray. Smoking in a restaurant is typically illegal, but this wasn’t exactly a legal restaurant.

“You’re moving 20 kilos of uncut to Manhattan tomorrow.” Corvus replied smugly.

The fat man’s eyes opened wide. He set down his fork and knife and pulled the cloth napkin out of his collar, dropping it on the table. “Well I guess I’m not now, if the police knows about it.”

Corvus took a quick puff on his cigarette. “The police don’t know. I know.”

“You’re the police.” The man said indignantly. The looked at the food and his drink, and back at Corvus. “You want something.”

Corvus smiled. “You just now figured that out? Yes I want something. A name.”

The fat man started cutting his next bite. “What name?”

“Human traffic…”

“Forget it.” The man interrupted him. “I deal in powder. I don’t know any human traffickers.”

“But, you see, you do.” Corvus replied, leaning forward. “Your agent who moves your powder out of Columbia. He moves girls too.”

“How do you know this?” Asked the fat man doubtfully.

“Well I know people.”

“Your job is strapping boots on parked cars.”

Corvus frowned. “That’s only… a temporary thing.”

The fat man nodded, chewing his food slowly.

“I can’t give you my supplier or I don’t have a supply.”

“You will give me your supplier or you don’t have a business. I have plenty of friends in narcotics.”

“This is bullshit.” The fat man protested.

Corvus set is phone on the table.

“Want to find out Eddie? I make a call, you make a call, and we’ll see if you even have a stash in five minutes.” The man frowned deeply. “It’s Eduard. You make me sound Italian.”

There was a long silence.

“Max”

“I need more than that.”

“Maxwell Sperilli.”

“Ah, so we are talking Italian.”

“Maybe but his crowd looks more Spanish. He operates out of Birchall Avenue.”

Corvus tapped the table and stood. “Eat up. It’s on me.”

Less than an hour later the 2 Train was roaring overhead as Corvus walked up to an auto repair shop that doubled as a small scrap yard. Perfect front business. Corvus thought. Corvus went around the side and let himself into the shop area. There were a few people working on cars, but they were too busy to notice him. He strolled to an office in the back.

“Hey Max” he said with a warm smile to the lone man in the room. The man snapped his head up on hearing his name. That’s all the validation Corvus needed. He pulled out his M&P and pointed it at the man’s head. The man didn’t react, but after a few seconds said

“Killing me is pointless. They’ll replace me by tomorrow.”

“They who?” Corvus demanded as he sat in a chair to be less conspicuous to the rest of the shop.

The man glanced around, as if looking for help.

“Keep both hands on the desk, thank you.” Corvus instructed. “Villanova.” Max said.

“I know who Villanova is. I’m talking about the girls.”

There was another long pause.
“Vargas. Bonita Vargas.”

“A woman?” Corvus asked, genuinely surprised. “From where?”

Max nodded. “Santiago, Chile”

Corvus stood, picked up a file folder off the desk, rolled it into a funnel, placed it around the barrel of his gun, and fired two shots.

 

Edited December 22, 2017 by Expressman
Grammar and spacing