[Excerpt from a book by a well-known reporter on famous and notable criminals]
We all know the big names of the crime world - Black Sally, Slackjaw, Lizzy Stride, Jim Dundermoore, Mikey Malice - but upon hearing the name "Mickey Smith", most of the hardworking, honest folk in Dunwall will simply shake their heads and shrug.
"It's quite an unremarkable name," one woman said, after I asked her if she knew the man. "How do you even know you'll find the right one?"
Anyone in the crime world can tell you that there is only one Mickey Smith. The Wandering Man, The Blue-Eyed Toaster, The Magician.
Despite the unremarkable name, Mickey Smith is no forgettable man. Upon first seeing him, most describe him as strange or foreign in appearance, though, they cannot quite place his heritage among the three types of foreigners most commonly seen in Dunwall.
He has tanned skin, a shade or two darker than that of the average Serkonan, but the blue eyes and sandy hair of a Gristian. Most are quick to assume that one of his parents was Serkonan and the other Gristian, but others disagree. Nevertheless, it wasn't Mickey's appearance that got him his reputation.
"Sure, I got respect for the guy. We all did," said a thug, who here, for all intents and purposes, will be called "Wilbur". "Mickey was a legend. Never got caught, n' always managed to find anythin' we needed. He worked for all the gangs, though only a little for most, supplyin' us with rare materials and getting us the connections we needed. He was involved in the slave trade, too, stealin' 'em n' sellin' 'em to gangs that used them as whores or sold them to doctors and natural philosophers.
"Later he worked with Black Sally, though. Basically ran her warehouse, her business, and even found recruits. Black Sally had the authority; Mickey had the brains."
"Never saw 'im kill nobody," Johnny, another thug, explained to me. "Without Black Sally, he wouldn'a gotten near none of us without gettin' stabbed."
Wilbur had a different idea of Mickey.
"He was pretty even-tempered for the most part, but when he got angry, he could yell - but his bite was even worse. No, he didn't kill no one, but if someone made him mad maybe they'd be missin' a finger or an eye by the end of the day, n' I seen him cut off worse. You didn't wanna get on his bad side. He wasn't messin' around, that's for sure. He was a gangster through n' through, ain't no mistake."
Not much is known about his early years. As I wandered the slums, searching from house to house for information about the mysterious Mickey Smith, nobody seemed to have any answers.
Except for one, tiny, old woman.
She invited me into her shack, made mostly of scrap metal, and heated up some water as I rested on her sofa.
"Mint tea," she told me, setting a tray on the table. "Delightfully refreshing. Perfect for this old, rusty mind of mine."
Martha spoke to me for hours of Mickey Smith as a young boy - or, as she called him, "Michael".
"Much too smart for his own good, that boy," she told me. "He was such a bright student. I really thought he would be able to make a good future for himself, but Michael was always getting himself into trouble."
"Did he grow up in this neighborhood?" I asked her.
"Oh, no, no. We had much more money back then. His father was a lawyer, and his mother owned a small cafe."
"So, he lived in the Legal District?"
"Yes, the Legal District it was, but nobody ever watched that boy. They just let him run free, and he'd come home with all sorts of mischief. At school, he played cards, swindling all the boys out of their money and then their parents' money. He had quick hands. Pick-pocketed people on the streets. Once he got older, he started working with his father, but something happened between them. Something to do with money. I'm sure he stole from both of his parents. Well, the last straw was when - " Martha leaned in close to me.
" - He got into the slave trade. That might not seem so bad to you, but Michael's father was one of the few good men out there. He wasn't corrupt like the other lawyers. He had values, and he was quite outspoken about his opposition to slavery. Even hired a Pandyssian maid, and that girl worked there for years. I believe she was hired right after Barton and Lillie, that's Mr. and Mrs. Smith, were married. On holidays, the girl ate at the table; Barton was quite fond of her. Well, you know that got the neighbors talking, especially since Michael had quite a peculiar look about him. There were - rumors."
The old woman would not tell me more about these rumors.
It was only later that I learned that the woman to whom I had spoken was senile and hardly able to make coherent sentences.
My words: "Not that day she wasn't."
Whatever Mickey's past, we know that he played a large part in the modern world of crime, holding a stake in almost every major gang in Dunwall (the exception being the Dead Eels). To work with Mickey was to be successful.
Highly respected and - I believe - comparable to the top names in Dunwall's underworld, Mickey Smith may not go down in the books as one of the most ruthless gangsters in history, but many gangs owe their business to Mickey's cunning and resourcefulness. Although he disappeared after the raid of Black Sally's warehouse, Wilbur sums it up when he says, "Without Mickey, we'd have been lost. I think he's still around doin' what he always does, controllin' stuff from the background. That's the magic 'bout Mickey. He don't even have to be here to run things."