AUTHOR'S NOTE: Chapters are going up a day later this week, apologies. And after the next one, there's going to be a break until the next chapter gets published, but I'll do my best not to leave it too long!

Chapter 27: Master Of Puppets

After speaking with Revy at the Pot-O-Gold, Rock moved a few things from his own apartment back to Lagoon's, but only some essentials that he would need while he tried to figure out how to approach the situation with Alejandro. The apartment itself doubled as both a dwelling for Lagoon Company and their office, which had been destroyed and rebuilt a couple of times in the past. Rock was quick to pin the map of Roanapur up on the wall in his room and resume sitting in front of it as he looked at the city, and the predicament, from every angle he could. Three locations had been narrowed down as viable hiding spots for Alejandro and his men. If he was smart, he wouldn't be with his people and would move around inconspicuously with two or three bodyguards. The bulk of his forces, though, would still need to reside somewhere.

Rock pointed to the left of the map and his finger fell on a point near the southeast of Roanapur.

"Pravat Avenue," he said to himself. Then, his finger went north and came to a sudden stop again. "Rachiada Street." Finally, he moved further east and stopped once more. "And the Strip." The three locations had been circled in marker and there were several pieces of writing scrawled across the map to weigh up the benefits and drawbacks for Alejandro to operate in each area. Clearly, Rock had been poring over this for some time. "What are the variables, here? What factors would influence Alejandro to hide in any of these places? He's been in the city for a long time, now, from what I've heard. He'd need somewhere easy to move around in. And somewhere quiet. That would mean…" He eyed the map for a few more seconds. Then, he raised the marker and crossed an 'X' through Pravat Avenue. "Too risky. The Task Force were using the apartment blocks there as their headquarters and Balalaika knows that by now. Alejandro wouldn't be that stupid."

Rock set his sights on Rachiada Street, after that, and read through his own notes to try and figure out if it was likely to be the location of the New Order. He had to consider the fact that Alejandro himself would be in a completely different part of the city. But he was planning something else, right now, and if he was successful then it wouldn't matter where Alejandro was. He would reveal himself soon enough.

"Rowan gets a lot of customers at the strip club there. It would be too difficult to move people around without them getting spotted, especially considering some of the cartel's people frequent Rowan's. That rules out Rachiada Street. Which just leaves…" He crossed out the second of the three locations and moved onto the last one. "…the Strip. Of course, it makes perfect sense!" Rock lightly slapped the palm of his hand off of his forehead as if to punish himself. "Dammit! Why didn't I see it sooner?! It's perfect for Alejandro's people to lay low. It can be busy, but most of the criminals there don't fraternise with the ruling factions. The businesses there are all self-owned, too. None of the bosses take a cut of anything. You could hide a whole army there and pass them off as a bunch of lowlifes partying their hearts out. He must be using some of the strip clubs. No, the brothels…on second thought, he'd be smarter to scatter them across several different establishments. Hmmm…" The Strip itself was so named because it was a single street, around one hundred metres in length, full of nothing but seedy bars, nightclubs, whorehouses, and secretive black market dealers. It was one of the only places in the city whose businesses were not under the thumb of the ruling factions. In most places, one of the prominent gangs in the city would run a protection racket and take a slice of the establishments' profits every month or so. The Strip, though, managed to escape this somehow or another, along with most of the city's outskirts. As such, it had been named after the Las Vegas Strip and was a favourite spot for criminals and ruffians to go and have a good time. But it did have a reputation for leaving many of its revellers robbed, beaten or, worse, murdered the next morning.

Revy rapped her knuckles on the open door and leaned against the frame.

"Knock, Knock," she said half-heartedly.

"What are you doing here?" Rock asked. He didn't even look away from the map as he spoke.

"Heard you talking to yourself again," she explained. "Think fast, Rock."

"What?" She tossed a can of beer in his direction without warning and he only just caught it before it collided with his face. "Oh…thanks." He cracked it open and started to drink, the thirst now upon him as his mind went into overdrive once more breaking down the situation in his head. He knew where Alejandro's men were hiding, but he couldn't have every building on the Strip decimated just to find them. He needed to simplify it and evaluate where exactly they would be. Revy walked further into the room and planted herself on an uncomfortable wooden chair by the wall, her feet up on the end of Rock's bed.

"You talk to Dutch?" she asked suddenly. "Or Benny?" As a matter of fact, Dutch had said shockingly little when Rock arrived back at the apartment with his things. He greeted him as if nothing was amiss and did not care enough to inquire as to what made Rock distance himself from his colleagues in the first place. It certainly made things less awkward.

"Dutch is Dutch," Rock answered simply. "I got a 'hello' out of him and that was about it. I haven't seen Benny, though."

"Hmph. Probably screwing that Indian chick he's been seeing. What was her name? Jane something, right?"

"Something like that," Rock said meekly, his mind now bafflingly split between the dilemma at hand and the woman they had saved from being killed at the Ramsap Inn.

"You ask me, we probably won't be seeing much of Benny these days."

"Uh huh."

"If he ain't locked away with his electronics, he's out with that annoying bitch. He's spent about as much time as you in this apartment the last few weeks."

"You don't say."

"I don't know if he's got some problem or if he's just getting wistful. Guess he's trying to make the most of the time he's got left."

"Right."

"Rock! Are you listening to me?!" Rock frowned and clenched the can of beer in his hand.

"I'm busy, Revy!"

"Fucking shitforbrains! You wouldn't know busy if it was written on that fucking necktie!"

"Cut it out, Revy, I'm trying to work!" She seemed to come to a decision not to rise to that and she laid back in the seat again, content to let him continue with his musings. After all, that was the only reason she was putting up with him being here, because he was working. Otherwise, she probably would have had more than just a few confrontational words for him.

He inwardly cursed her for throwing his train of thought off track. It didn't take him too long to figure it out, though. Of all the establishments on the Strip, there was one that suited Alejandro's needs more than the others and one he would realistically jump at the chance to avail of if he was clever. On the other hand, Rock couldn't account for Alejandro being stupid, so it was almost a bit of a gamble.

"I've got it," he said aloud. "I've got it!"

"Finally," Revy groaned, sticking a cigarette into her mouth and producing her flip lighter. "So, you gonna keep me in suspense or do you want to tell me where this piece of shit is?"

"Not him," Rock clarified. "His people. I know where he's been hiding them."

"Oh, what?!" Revy exclaimed. "What the fuck, Rock?! How is that gonna help us? You told me you could find Alejandro!" With some more time and a bit more tenacity, he probably could. In fact, he was sure he would do so at a later date. But this was enough for now.

"Alejandro knows what he'll be getting himself into by coming for you. Providing he was paying attention in Venezuela, that is. And that means he's going to need the manpower to back him up. Don't need to kill the lion, just cut its throat and let it bleed. He'll be helpless."

"That's pretty fucking ruthless, Rock. But what's the point of this? Wouldn't it be quicker just to go after the big boss man and take him out? You know, cut the head off the snake?"

"Not necessarily," Rock said firmly. "I think he moves around. He'd be stupid to stay in one place when he knows he's not welcome here, even if it is on the Strip. He'd be hard to pin down on the best of days. This way, he'll know he doesn't have much time left and that will force him out of the shadows. He'll come after you, but you'll see it coming a mile off." Revy considered his words, but she didn't say anything in response. He turned around in the seat to face her. "What, no questions for me about why I'm doing this or what I'm getting out of it? I thought you'd be ready to give me an earful right about now." She gave him a side-eyed glare and grunted in annoyance, but she didn't seem to have the energy to throttle him.

"Why bother? You made yourself pretty clear in the Pot-O-Gold. Ain't gonna waste my breath."

Rock remembered the night she had gone after the Cat Lady and how he followed her out there. He knew what he was doing on that night, how something made him go after her when he knew it would be dangerous. That fire inside him caused him to ignore the danger and jump recklessly into the viper pit. It was the same when she found herself locked in battle with Fritz, the German man who had been hired by La Famiglia to weaken the position of the ruling factions. On that night, he genuinely had been in very real danger. Had things not played out the way they did, he would have been killed. Perhaps, that was what he wanted at the time. He told Revy to pull the trigger and put an end to Fritz's games even though the barrel of the madman's gun was pointed to the side of his head. Rock recalled something else, too, an older memory he hadn't really thought about in a long time. It was the day he was taken away from his old life by Lagoon Company, when they held him hostage aboard their boat and brought him to Roanapur for the first time. And it was Revy who had taken him. When the others were prepared to leave and continue with their job, Revy insisted they take Rock as a hostage so that they could ransom him off to his company after the fact. In a way, she was the reason he was here in the first place. If not for her, he probably would have just gone back to Japan and returned to being the disappointment of the family at a dead end job. He owed his new life to Revy. And he blamed her for it, too.

He shut his eyes as if that would help clear his head and he turned away from her, his gaze back on the map.

"The Silver Sun," he said quietly. "That's the nightclub where you'll find his people. The owners operate a small smuggling outfit in Rayong and they very rarely visit the city unless they have to. To top it off, the Colombians despise the place so it proposes the lowest risk of being seen by Alejandro's enemies. It's the most logical conclusion." Revy hopped up out of the seat and went for the door.

"Thanks for the tip," she told him shortly.

"Wait! You're going there, now? In broad daylight?"

"What, are you fucking retarded?! No, I'm not going now. I'm gonna make a call. I know a couple of people who might want in on this little killing spree."