[L I N K]

“Hey Marc, a new contract just popped up on the channel!” A head popped into the living room where Marc was reading the newspaper.

“Okay,” He remains unmoved by the news and continues to read.

“It’s a two and a half billion dollar contract,” the male adds on. Marc’s body perks up slightly and he closes the newspaper. “I’ll pull up the information in the work room. ” Marc stands up and heads to the kitchen. Grabbing two glasses, he turns to the liquor cabinet and pulls out a 50 year aged whiskey. He pours two decent sized amounts and returns the bottle before taking both glasses to the work room.

“Alright, Steven what do you have for me?”

“This billon dollar contract has your seal on it so looks like it’s just for you,” Steven pulled up the contract letter and as clear as did it had his calling card signature on it. “And it’s for a whole family.”

“I’m sorry? The whole family, like mom, dad, children?”

“Yeah, the WHOLE family. Here, this is them,” A photo of a happy smiling family is pulled up on the large screen, “Meet the Yotomo family, one of the oldest and most neutral families in all of Asian crime.”

“Define neutral.”

“Like, they’ll work for any organization as long as it is a good price and they have protection from being attacked by all syndicates and factions. They started working only from one family of the yakuza, basically, since the beginning of yakuza formation but that soon grew when they were being recommended to other fractions and soon different gangs.”

“First question, who put this hit on them? Second, why was the hit put on them? Lastly, do they know they have a hit on them?” Marc took a seat and sipped on his drink.

“Your employer will be a Joseph Chan, he runs under a small group under his uncle, Liu Su Chan, the big boss. It looks like he’s trying to clear competition out of the way for his own people to come in. And lastly, it looks like The Yotomo family doesn’t know.” A surveillance footage was pulled up of the two daughters walking and laughing carefree with no protection in their school uniforms.

“Get everything you know on Joseph Chan, I need to know this employer in and out. Also, do you think I should go see the uncle let him know what this nephew is up to?” Marc detaches a second keyboard and separates the screens, allowing Steven to work on his own thing while he got to know the Yotomo family.

“Letting the uncle know might be bad news for nephew or for youuuuu,” Steven sang, “After all you did help Liu Su Chan get rid of some collateral damage on multiple occasion.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, I’m going to call him now,” He dials an unknown number and there are three rings before he hangs up and dials again.

“Ashely speaking.”

“Good evening Ashely, I was wondering if I could get some time with the Mr. Chan?”

“May I ask who is speaking?”

“Let him know it’s the cleaning man, he’ll understand.”

“Okay, please hold–” Some silence goes by as Marc begins to pull photos and video as well as documents from file. “Yes sir, Mr. Chan said he can see you in the tomorrow morning at 9.”

“That will be perfect, Thank you Ashely.” A single click was heard and Steven turns to stare at Marc.

“DUDE, YOU CAN JUST GET AN AUDIENCE WITH THE HIGHEST TRIAD BOSS IN THE WORLD?! JUST LIKE THAT?!” Steven exclaimed as he jumped up and down in his seat. “And you’re known as the cleaning man to him, dude, that’s fucking hilarious.”

“Just… research Steven,” Marc sighed at the childish behavior of his friend and went back to his own research.

“Wellllllll– I finished while you were on the call. Here is what I have: Joseph Chan isn’t exactly the smartest cookie in the business. I also learned that Joseph Chan is only captain because his father – Mr. Liu’s youngest brother – is spending time in the slammer for murder and procession of illegal firearms. From prison visitation logs, he makes frequent visits to his dad on, I’m guessing here, what moves he should be making in his distract. Recently however, those visits are little to none. His district is the only district that has gone up in taxes, a whooping 15%.

Before you ask, his district is the medical one. So they’re getting young girls to give up their babies for money, with some firearm deals and drug movement. Recently, he looks like he’s taking some profits from the the earnings because he’s been buying a lot of things like in the last month, he’s bought THREE NEW CARS! Payment up front! WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT? I DON’T UNDERSTAND RICH PEOPLE!”

“Steven, please, you’re giving me a headache. And it’s probably withholding profits from his uncle, which is why he is the only district to increase taxes. Something I can bring up to Uncle Liu, can you compile that stats for me, on paper? Uncle Liu is old school,” Steven huffed.

“Right, old school. Anyways what did you find out about the Yotomo family?”

“They have two daughters, Tiffany and Tracy. Both go to the same private school. It looks like the younger one Tracy is deaf – a condition she was born with. Both are well liked at their school, also the top of their year. From the looks of it, they don’t really know what their family is a part of but of course they might be really good at hiding it and putting up a facade.

The wife, Stephanie, was a socialite and big philanthropist even before she met Yotomo and they probably met at one of the many gala charity parties. She focuses her status to bring in money to all the hard of hearing or deaf agencies in the area. They host fundraisers across the Los Angeles area once a month and bring in a lot of money and have lots of sponsors–”

“THAT’S SO KIND OF HER,” Steven turned to Marc and had tears streaming down his face.

“Why– why are you crying?”

“I don’t know. It’s just so touching to me,” Steven wiped his face. “But from what you’re telling me is this family is nothing but good people except for their crime involvement.”

“Yeah, it just doesn’t make sense to take them out, I’m going to research them some more. Do they have any job openings? Something that is close to the family?”

“I’ll check the web but I highly doubt it,” Steven went typing away.

“Well, when you’re done, can you put everything on Joseph together for me so I can read over it before going to see Uncle Liu,” Marc got up, downing the rest of this whiskey before leaving the room. “I’ll go make dinner.”

“CAN WE HAVE PASTA PLEASE?!”

“Sure, just finish up and put it in my room.” Marc left the room and headed towards the kitchen. He began cooking for Steven and himself.

About thirty minutes later, Steven joined Marc in the kitchen as he plated their food.

“So I found some interesting information I think you would like to hear.” Marc nodded, indicating he was listening. “Right, you might want to come over here to watch the video,” Steven turns the screen towards Marc and presses play. “There has been four attempts on the Tony Yotomo in the past two months.” He lets the video finish playing before swiping left to an ad. “This is an ad for a bodyguard position to protect Tony, put out by the head Yakuza. Do you want me to make contact with them? There are some very specific requirements.”

“Sure, put in my name into the hat, but after my meeting with Uncle Liu,” Marc pushes the plate over the Steven before taking a seat at the island. “What else did you find out about Joseph?”

“His uncle has no idea about where all these hits are coming from, I think you going to see him might be a really dangerous move for you.”

“Can you trace all these contracts back to Joseph?”

“Well, I think- yeah, actually. I think I can, I’ll take me all night though.”

“If you can get it done for me by the time I go see Uncle Liu, it’ll seal the deal with him. And I won’t have to kill the family.”

“Okay, I’ll eat my dinner in the work room,” Steven picked up his plate and walked back to the room. “Bring me a drink though!” Marc gave him a thumbs up and went to eating his dinner.

To be continued.