Chapter 2 - The Thrown Gauntlet
"That's why I'm here, ma'am," I said, trying my best to sound calm and reassuring. "Now explain to me what happened, and I'll help you as well as I can."
"All right then," she said. You could see the weight being lifted off her shoulders, now that she had someone to talk to. She fished around in her purse for a piece of paper, and tossed it in front of me. It was a wedding announcement, with gold filigree and everything, for Yang and one Cardin Winchester. She was in a modest-ish sundress, while he was in khakis and a bright red polo. He had one of those smiles that begged you to punch it, and that was before you knew he was a racist bully, relied completely on his family fortune instead of doing anything meaningful with his life, and was rumored to be in bed with a few gangsters. A model example of the upper class in this city.
"He doesn't really look like your type," I admitted, trying to understand why a tough girl like her would be scared like she was. Marriage was a pretty scary business, or so I'm told, but not the 'scared for your life' kind of scary.
"He's totally my type, and I'm totally his. I want a piece of his money, and he wants a piece of my body," she wiggled her goods to make the point, and only the thought of my mother's death glare kept my basic instincts in check. "We'll tie the knot, play around for a few years, then once we get bored of each other, call in the lawyers and see how much I get out of the bargain."
"Truly, you're living every little girl's dream," I told her, sarcasm dripping off my tongue like grease off a badly-cooked bacon strip.
"They call 'em dreams because they only work when you're asleep," she pouted, her lip puffing up like a pink croissant. "But I didn't come all this way here in the rain for you to judge me, I need your help. He's gone. Vanished. And the wedding is a week away!"
"Are you sure you need me for this?" I asked, tilting my head like a dog. "For rich playboys like him, disappearing ain't so much a problem as it is a pastime. He's probably off on the other side of the kingdom having one last crazy party before settling down."
"That's what I thought at first, but I've checked. None of his West Coast friends have seen him lately, the papers are all quiet, and nobody's touched his private jet or bought any airline tickets under his name. Not even his cars have gone anywhere. It's not like him at all. I mean, he's an ass, but not the kind of ass that would do this. Something is wrong, and I need to find out what."
"That's quite a problem you've got there, Ms. Xiao Long," I whistled, reaching for my flask. I offered it to her, and she drained it dry as the Sahara. "And unfortunately for you, it may require quite a price too. My usual going rate is -"
Before I could even explain my usual prices, she pulled out her purse and dropped two thick bundles of notes on the desk. They made a smack like a book being dropped, and the stacks probably had enough pages in them to treat like a book. It was bad form to count money in front of clients, but I eyeballed roughly nine thousand Lien. More than enough to cover expenses, pay the back rent on my office, and maybe give Velvet a little bonus for putting up with me all these months. I poked the money like it was a mirage, making sure I wasn't seeing things that weren't there.
"Hopefully less than ten thousand. Consider this a start; I'll find more once you prove the first ten was money well spent."
"Definitely less than this," I agreed, sliding the money into my drawer next to the revolver, backup flask, matchbook, and empty cigar box. "I've got the feeling that there's more at stake here than just another fortune for your collection." It was true. When Raven Branwen's flight disappeared about ten years back, she left her entire share of the family fortune to her daughter, and then when her stepmother bit the big one, Summer Rose left Yang half of her estate. This dame needed another giant payday the way I needed another tragic tale of lost love. Instead of gracing my question with a response, the woman grabbed me by the suspenders and pulled my face an inch from hers. Once again, my instincts to contribute to the next generation clashed with my instincts to continue living as part of this one, but the look on her face wasn't angry or even scared. She was genuinely concerned, thought about what was still as clear as a bowl of pea soup.
"You're right, Mr. Arc," she continued, her voice low like she was afraid the dead flies on my windowsill would hear her. "As you probably know, I have... friends in the Xiong Triad, and Cardin's been helping finance some of Torchwick's ventures for a while. Roman and Junior are arrogant, but they're not stupid. They know that being at each other's throats like they've been is just wasting time and money and lives, and they figured that helping put on this wedding for their 'friends' would be a start to a ceasefire. If word of this gets out, they're going to start pointing fingers. Then they're going to start pointing guns. And I don't want to take the risk that one of them takes a potshot at one of the few things in this world I actually give a damn about."
"A Mob wedding," my face blanched like a cabbage leaf in a pot of boiling water. I've had my fair share of scrapes and crazy plans, don't get me wrong, but I knew my rightful place in the world, and it was as far from Roman Torchwick and Hei Xiong as I could get away with. "I don't suppose you have more than ten grand in that purse?"
"Maybe," Yang smirked as she stood to leave, "But you're gonna have to earn it." She swayed her hips as she left, giving me my third almost-nosebleed in less than an hour. Cardin was a bastard, through and through, but I couldn't help but envy him getting into bed with her every night. As a private dick, I've seen enough evidence that life wasn't fair to prove it scientifically at least a dozen times, but this was a little bigger blip on the radar than most, even if you remembered that neither of them were the faithful type. Once I heard the sound of Xiao Long being driven off, Velvet poked her head back through the door, looking for all the world like she expected to find my corpse behind the desk.
"I'm guessing you heard all that, Velv?" I asked her, standing up to put on my trench coat.
"Word of advice, Jaune," she gave me a smile, but I could tell her heart wasn't quite in it. "If you ever think a rabbit Faunus can't hear you, you're wrong. But a wedding with the Mob and a Triad?"
"I'm not sure I believe it myself, to be honest, but ten grand is a lot of money to spend on a practical joke." Her ears perked up, as if she had been waiting for me to say something like that.
"Y-You're not seriously considering taking the job!" she shouted, jumping a little as she did. Seeing her like that, I could completely imagine her ancestors jumping in the exact same way before fleeing their enemies.
"Past considering, I've already taken it," I said, fumbling for a match before Velvet lit my next cigarette. She had a point, though, and her point was that Yang was a predator. A smart man would follow the example of Velvet's evolutionary cousins, dive into the nearest hole in the ground and wait for this whole wedding business to blow over, but I've never been well-known for my smarts. Velvet flashed me her usual "Please be safe" smile, and I gave her my usual "If I wanted safety, I'd be an accountant" shrug. My beloved car was still in the shop, which meant I was hoofing it through this shower. I walked out into the rain, thinking to myself that this case would finally provide me some much-needed excitement.
I wasn't wrong.
Author's Notes: My original title for this chapter was "I Ain't Sayin' She's a Gold Digger (Even if She Is)". I like this name better for the double references it allows (both "throwing the gauntlet" as giving a challenge, and "gauntlets" being Canon!Yang's weapon of choice).Given Yang's interactions with Junior and the people at The Club in RWBY, it felt oddly fitting that she be associated with their AU counterparts. I'm not quite sure I like how she went from "I'm scared" in the last chapter to being snarky in this one, but perhaps I can attribute that to the gallows humor that we see so much of in noir.
To clarify any doubts about the future, I currently intend to post one chapter of this story each Friday. As of now, I'm partway finished with Chapter 5, so I at least have a little bit of a buffer. If I actually stick with this long enough to finish the story, maybe I'll switch things up a little, who knows?
And don't forget any of the usual fanfiction things! (review, favorite, follow, telling your friends/enemies/passerby)
