Chapter 6: Many Meetings

"Well, Mr. Largo?" asked the mild-mannered man.

"Hell, I'll settle for anything at this point," drawled Largo.

The mild-mannered man glanced to his left. "And you, Colonel —"

"The Klingon Empire will never yield!" said Colonel Jarvis, with a blast of spittle.

"…What?"

A uniformed man whispered in his ear. He snarled, drew a pistol, and shot him in the foot. The man paused, remembered something, howled theatrically and hopped away.

"This is outrageous!" he said, as loud as before. "Two million? For the rockets! Never! They're worth twice that, even with the name!"

Roland Porquillion, mild-mannered millionaire, rolled his eyes. "You agreed to the price not three minutes ago, Colonel."

He sputtered. "No, no I didn't! I deny it! You can't prove that! It slipped out! You heard me wrong!"

"Which is it, then?" said Largo.

"Diiiiiiiieeee!" Jarvis shot Largo's head off.

The general's wet, ragged, breaths hissed over the conference room speakers.

"Jarvis…" said Largo, rolling his eyes.

"Grrr!" he said.

"You're not in the same room as us, Colonel," Porquillion said.

"…Eh?"

"This is a teleconference, remember?"

He blinked (correctly, on the second try). "…I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, LARGO! NEXT TIME!"

"And wipe off the camera, please? It's expensive."

Jarvis snarled, and lurched forward, a small squeegee in hand. Largo grimaced as the man's armpit momentarily filled the 50' teleconference screen. He whispered to Porquillion, "Why the hell does he keep doing that?"

"It might be genetic," he replied. "A problem with the salivary —"

"Nah, I mean shootin' that dart gun of his." On-screen, the Colonel tugged at something just outside the teleconference camera's field of view.

"No idea," he replied.

Pop. The Colonel's hand jerked into view. "Ha!" he said, suction cup dart in hand.

"Let's back off from a settlement for a little bit," said Porquillion. "Colonel, you want information from Mr. Largo, correct?"

"A name, and an address," said the Colonel, reloading. "That's all."

"But they were difficult to get, weren't they, Mr. Largo?"

"I lost five men," he said. "Expensive men."

"You should have been more careful," said the Colonel.

He raised an eyebrow. "I think you lost, what, twenty?"

"Twenty-three," grumbled the Colonel.

"So maybe you can see, then, why Mr. Largo wants to keep his costs down?"

"Well, uh…"

"And perhaps you, Mr. Largo, can understand the Colonel's reluctance to sell his products at half the market rate?"

"Yep," he replied.

"Good, that's a start."

"It's 'cause I got him by the balls and he knows it."

The Colonel roared. "You LOUSY LITTLE —"

"What in heaven's name are you doing?" whispered Porquillion, as the Colonel employed several crude adjectives (all scatological).

"Playing my part," replied Largo.

"Going a little far, aren't we?"

"All right, all right," Largo said, loudly. "Four million, and that's as high as I'll go."

"Ha! And HA! I laugh at you! HA!" said the Colonel. "After that insult, the asking price just shot up to a EIGHT million!"

"Then I guess somebody ain't getting no name then," replied Largo.

"Gentlemen, please!" said Porquillion, as the Colonel swore incoherently. "Let's try to be civilized about this?"

"NO!" said the Colonel.

"Mr. Porquillion?" buzzed the intercom.

"Yes, Koyomi?" he said, over the Colonel's cursing.

"There's a, uh, young man here to see you."

"I'm a bit busy at the moment," he said, as the Colonel went through (in explicit detail) exactly what he would do to Largo's internal organs. "Can it wait?"

"He's quite insistent, sir, and he's — sir? Hey! You can't go in there, you jerk!" The Colonel paused in his diatribe (having stumbled over what he would do with Largo's pancreas), and Porquillion heard a familiar voice shouting, "Meesh-ter Pawk! Meesh-ter Pawk!" over the intercom.

"Send him in, Koyomi," he sighed. He turned back to the negotiations. "If you will excuse me, gentlemen, an urgent matter has just turned up. May I suggest a ten minute break?"

"….Eh? What? Fine fine fine!" growled the Colonel (who had just remembered what to drink with Mr. Largo's liver).

"Time for a drink, anyway," said Largo, rising.

Mr. Porquillion stepped into the corridor after him, and exhaled. Community service was so trying, sometimes. "But in a city like this, someone has to do it," he thought.

"Meesh-ter Pawk! Meesh-ter Pawk!"

"Speaking of which," he muttered, as Greaser stumbled up the stairs, followed by his secretary.

"I'm sorry, sir, but, well, he threatened to bleed all over me!"

"Mishter Phork! Ezz terrible! Real bad, even!"

"It's all right, Koyomi, I'll take care of this. Take the rest of the morning off, will you? Oh, but first, send off those cheques to the United Way, and check in on the orphanage, will you? Thanks. Now, what's the trouble, Gerald?"

'Gerald' (who winced at the name) sniffed back some blood. "W-w-well, me 'n th' bhoies were-- "

"Just a moment, Gerald." Porquillion snapped his nose back into place. "Now, you were saying?" he asked, as Greaser made interesting noises.

"Uh, well, uh, (gods, that hurt), me, Ripper, and Goggles —"

"Ah?" said Porquillion, raising a finger.

"…Roger, Patrick, and I…" said Greaser.

"Better. Carry on."

"Well, uh, we were out doin' that neighbourhood watch like you asked us to, (y'know, helpin', uh, little old ladies and kittens and stuff), and we saw this chick robbin' old man Largo's place! So we runs in, and we, uh, have a civilized, uh, conversation with her, and she just flips out like a ninja, y'know, like, ya! tah! hi-YAH! 'n shizzit like that, with some HOO-YAH, and —"

"You were robbing the store again, weren't you?" he sighed.

Greaser paused in mid-'whuttah!' "Aw, c'mon, Mr. Pork, now that ain't fair! Me and Rip — er, Roger — went straight an' all!"

"Gerald…"

"'n Gogs, you saw how he helped that old lady across the street last week!"

"Gerald! Did…you…rob…the store?"

Greaser shuffled his feet. "Well, uh, maybe a little bit…"

"And yes, I did see that incident with Widow Gertrude. She gets out of the hospital next Tuesday, as I recall."

"Uh…"

"Dare I ask how much damage you did to the store?"

"Well, uh, we might've, uh…"

"Gerald…"

"…Not…much?"

Porquillion nodded. "So, you robbed a convenience store."

"Yeah."

"And you were beaten up."

"Yeah…"

"By a girl."

Greaser sighed. "Yeah…"

"And now you want me to do something about it."

"Well…yeah?"

"I suppose I could call the police, not that they'd do any good, mind you…"

"That's not fair, Mr. Pork! We had a deal!"

"Yes, we did," he replied, coolly. "And it was that I help you off the streets if you help me clean them up. And that means you don't go around robbing Quickie-Marts, Gerald!"

"It was just some harmless fun!" said Greaser. "We weren't gonna hurt nobody!"

"You're a terrible liar, Gerald," said Porquillion. "And I'm very disappointed in you. I thought you were better than this."

"I know I made a mistake, Mr. Pork, and I know you've done a lot for me and the boys, but this girl, we gotta do something about her! She's dangerous! She shot Goggles, and I dunno if Ripper will ever stand up straight again! And look what she did to my suit! We gotta do something about her!" He slid up close to him. "Let me and the boys go after her! We won't hurt her or nothin', we'll just spook her a bit, show her that we and you won't let her mess around in this town. We can even bring her to you so you can talk with her! You're good at talkin', Mr. Pork. Heh, I mean, you talked to me for five minutes and now I'm clean as a whistle. We can help her, is what I'm sayin'."

He considered this. "How are Roger and Patrick?"

"What? Uh, they're downstairs. They're tough, Mr. Pork, and they's behind me all the way on this one. They really wanna get, uh, help this girl out."

"I suppose you'll go and 'help' this young woman no matter what I say." He sighed. "Very well. Take the boys and bring this girl to me. Alive," he added, after a look at Greaser, "and relatively uninjured. And be careful. If she puts up too much of a fuss, don't bother. No point in any of you getting yourselves killed."

"You can count on me, Mr. Pork!" said Greaser, flashing a manic salute.

"I won't," he muttered, once the street punk had clattered down the front stairs.

"What was that about?" asked Largo, coming down the hall, beer bottle in hand.

"A side project I'm working on," said Porquillion, as they made their way back into the conference room. "I recruited a local street gang to police some of the rougher parts of town."

"Fighting scum with scum?"

"I work with what I have. If that means paying off the roughest gang in downtown to bring some law and order to the place, then so be it."

"My god," said Largo, "you really are serious about cleaning up this town, aren't you?"

"Someone has to," said Porquillion, "starting with him," he added, with a gesture towards the conference screen. "And what exactly were you doing earlier?"

"Just yankin' his chain. Joking, joking!" he added, after one look at Porquillion's expression. "Nah, I know his profile. Erratic, unpredictable, and stupid. Get him angry and he'll make all sorts of mistakes. Like not checking his teleconference equipment, for example." He gestured towards the screen.

"I admit, the bug was a nice touch," said Porquillion, watching (and listening) to the Colonel having a heated radio conversation with someone. "I wonder if he realizes that the camera controls on his end don't actually do anything?"

"The way his mind works, would it matter?" Porquillion conceded the point.

"Wiped out?" Jarvis screamed into his receiver. "What do you mean, all of them? Then send reinforcements! What do you mean, you already did? I'll have your head for this, you incompetent —"

"Let's finish this," said Porquillion, flicking a switch. "Colonel? Colonel, are you there?"

"What! What? Look, I'll call you back later!" The Colonel blasted back to his seat before the camera and flicked a switch. "Yes, yes, what what what? I'm busy!"

"Have you had time to consider Mr. Largo's offer?" he asked.

"Five million, plus the name," said Largo.

"Eh?" said the Colonel. "Yes, yes, whatever."

"Excellent," said Porquillion. "We'll meet at the arranged place in half an hour."

"Fine!"

"Five months of work," said Porquillion, after he closed the conference. "And it all comes down to this. I trust your men from Interpol are ready?"

"Ready and waiting," said Largo, taking a swig of beer. "We nail him tonight, we take down the third largest arms dealer in southern Europe."

"And I get my city back," noted Porquillion.

"There's one thing I don't get about you, Pork."

"Hmm?"

"Why the secret identity thing? Philanthropist by day, kingpin at night, but you're still, well, nice? Why do the whole criminal mastermind thing without the criminal bit? Not that I'm complaining, I'm just curious."

"Ever ran for office, Agent Largo? Oh," he added, as they stepped out onto the street, "my apologizes for what happened to your store."

"What?"

(Note from the author: I apologize for this chapter, and promise that the next one will be better. It has Chloe in it.)