Chapter 3: Same Shit

The two men were speaking privately in the confines of the alleyway, whispering so as not to be heard. Anywhere else they would have attracted attention. Although, it was not that long ago when they would not have needed to restrict their conversation to the shadows and could have discussed business openly. The sun had been pouring down upon their faces, only just as it began to set, but the light suddenly disappeared and the silhouette of a third person enveloped them. The two of them looked up in horror at the appearance of the gunslinger, hands on hips. They knew why she was here, but she didn't look angry. Instead, a venomous grin was spread across her face and her eyes narrowed at the sight of them.

"Well, would you lookie what I found," Revy hissed excitedly. "Don't let me interrupt. Wouldn't half surprise me if you two started fucking one another, way you snuck out here. Not a prying eye in sight…'cept me."

"Revy!" the man to the left exclaimed with heavily exaggerated joy. "What a surprise. Been too long since I've seen you around. What is it, two, three weeks?"

"Try days, ya fucking headcase." Indeed, earlier in the week the very same man had hired Lagoon Company for a job. Nimble Nick, as he was known, was a professional thief and often made a living by emptying the safes and hidden caches of various wealthy criminals in the surrounding area. He had never been discovered, which was largely the only reason he was still alive. It was unconfirmed but rumoured that he had stolen from the ruling factions more than once in the past and gotten away with it. Most recently, he had given Lagoon a call and paid them to ferry him to a port in Vietnam to deposit his stolen goods where a hireling of his collected it. Half of the payment had been given upfront. The other half, however, went missing when Nick did.

He was a tall man, hunched over and with long, greasy hair hanging loosely either side of his face. Beneath his ankle-length leather duster, he wore a rainbow-coloured turtleneck sweater and a torn black shirt over it. His teeth were all yellow and he always had dirt on his face. Most people gave him a wide berth due to his stench alone. The second man was unremarkable in appearance save for his age. He must have been a teenager, most likely a spy for Nick who evaluated local properties and gang headquarters for burglary purposes. Revy took a step forward and Nick froze on the spot, petrified. Naturally, he was quite the coward by nature.

"You're a slippery little weasel, you know that? Fell right off the face of the earth after we brought you back from Vietnam. How about you cough up that five grand you owe us?"

"You know how it is, Revy," Nick said with a sickening smile on his face. Revy would have loved nothing more than to smack it off. "Time is so convoluted these days, you lose track of the shit you're meant to be doing."

"That bullshit might work on some of the retards you usually work with," Revy spay back. "But you ain't never been acquainted with us before. I suggest you pay what you're owed. Or else…" She unleashed the two Cutlasses from their holsters and held them high into the air, their shadows falling across the faces of the two men.

"Who, whoa!" Nick roared, stepping back a few feet. The other man did the same, but he was not the one in danger. Revy had eyes only for the thief. "God damn, you don't fuck around!"

"You better believe it," she warned. Truthfully, it should have been Rock that was doing the debt-collecting for Lagoon Company while Revy would serve as the muscle in case any of the debtors got ideas into their heads. But he had been noticeably absent recently, just as he had been for the job that Nick hired them for. Dutch hadn't seen fit to give him a call for a simple delivery job.

"Five grand, Nick! Hand it over."

"Alright, alright," Nick relented, reaching into his jacket and removing a dirty burlap sack that had been stuffed in there. By the looks of it, there was much more than the requested amount in there. "I can't be the only one who's lost business recently. Screw me for trying to save a penny or two!" He fished out the cash from the sack and tossed it at Revy. She finally holstered her guns and snatched it up from the ground.

"Yeah, well, next time you try to pull a stunt like that, make sure it ain't with someone who's gonna put you in the ground for it." After that warning, Revy walked away and left the two men in the alley. She would probably see him at the Yellowflag at some point, anyway, considering he frequented it on occasion.

With her business for the evening concluded, she stuffed the lump of cash into her tank top and nestled it in her cleavage. Then, she made her way across several streets and joined a small gathering of people outside a collection of houses and apartment blocks. Here, criminals, locals and travellers would often gather for games of cards in the evening. Earlier today, Revy was tracking down some other former clients that owed Lagoon Company money when she came across Eda at this very spot, playing cards with some of these strangers. That was unlike her, but Revy decided to join in and neglected her duties long enough for Nick to leave his usual dwelling place. As a result, she had spent the better part of an hour following him to the alley. Now, though, she was free to do as she pleased. She came to a stop beside the wooden box that served as a table while Eda and the man across from her played a game of cards. The man, named Dakota, was a Native American, one who lived just outside the city but who visited often enough to have become known to the others. He often worked as a mercenary and hitman to make some cash here and there. His hair was shaven at the sides but braided at the top, something like a mohawk, and he wore simply grey shorts and a short sleeved black shirt that was open.

"Two-Hands," Eda said, looking up from her cards. Strangely, she was still wearing her nun's habit. "Was beginning to think you'd gotten lost. Considering you came back in one piece, I assume everything went alright?"

"Pfft, are you kidding me? It'll take more than a few dumbass slackjaws to ruin my day."

"You don't have to tell me. This shouldn't take too long. I was just wiping the floor with our good friend, here."

"She all talk, Dakota?" Revy asked. "Or are you getting your ass whooped by this bible-bashing skank?"

"The former," Dakota answered with a smirk. "I haven't lost a game yet." He was confident, but some of the expressions of the onlookers suggested he was embellishing the truth. Predictably, the game lasted a further three minutes or so before Eda revealed her cards and the Native American was beaten. He threw his cards down on the table and stood up from the small metal chair he had been sitting in. "Got lucky is all," he exclaimed before joining the crowd and plucking up a bottle of beer.

"Keep telling yourself that, hon," Eda slighted him. Revy took the seat previously occupied by him and the two women shuffled the deck and dealt the cards again. Though the surrounding crowd had been rapt by the previous game, their attention slowly dwindled as they spoke and drank amongst themselves and the two players might as well have been in private. That was how Revy preferred it, anyway.

"So, fill me in on a little something," Eda began as the game got going. "Rumour has it that you and a certain bloodthirsty Colombian went on the hunt for this New Order I've been hearing about." Revy grunted.

"You got your nose so far up everyone's ass, I'm surprised you don't smell like shit. Who you talking to, anyway?"

"I don't need to be talking to anybody," Eda told her. "It's a wonder Balalaika doesn't know about the bloodbath that took place out there, from what I hear. News travels fast in this city."

"Was off the back of that job we did for the Lovelace kid," Revy explained. "After that shitshow, the fuckers followed us back to Roanapur. I hear the bitch killed one of them. The other two…we'll be seeing them sooner or later."

"So I've heard," Eda replied, once again implying she knew quite a bit about the situation despite having been absent while it was unfolding. Revy hadn't explained it all to her, either, which meant she had gotten this information from somewhere else, of her own accord. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but does one of these assholes happen to be a former member of everybody's favourite bad batch of assassins?"

"Yeah," Revy confirmed. "Ashur is a wolf, alright. The leprechaun went after him up the Mekong. Almost got himself killed, too. Or didn't you know about that as well?"

"I might have," Eda replied with malicious elatedness. "Either way, they don't scare me. A jumped up, ragtag group of fuckwads. You've got nothing to worry about."

Revy remembered Alejandro, and how he had been rumoured to be in the city. He was coming after her for the deaths of his men. Revy was not worried or scared, but she was expecting the Colombian man to show his face any day now and try his hand at killing her. She was almost excited by the idea. It would certainly take her mind off of other, more troublesome thoughts.

"Strange to see you out here anyway, Two-Hands," Eda continued. "Ain't debt collection more Rock's style, anyway?" Revy tensed up at the mention of her companion's name. Since that day three weeks back when Revy had told him how things were, when she had warned him that he had an important choice to make, she hadn't seen him. Lagoon Company had a communal apartment that they used and, since the business with Roberta and the Grey Fox team, they spent most nights there together. Rock, however, had seen fit to vacate the building and move back to his own personal apartment.

"He ain't been around," Revy answered simply, offering no more information.

"You don't say?" Eda replied, straightening up in her seat. She was revelling in the opportunity to poke fun at Revy's relationship with him. "What's the matter, trouble in paradise?" Revy kept her eyes on her cards, but her temper was bubbling like a volcano ready to erupt.

"Eda…leave it alone." The nun had been ready to launch into an all-out offensive, but she stopped herself all of a sudden. She knew there was more to this than met the eye, and she was not willing to risk digging deeper when her compatriot was this uncomfortable.

"Jeez…talk about plucking a nerve," she said somewhat brazenly. "Well, you better hope Dutch doesn't keep you running errands like this for him. The way things have been around here lately, he might need you and your Cutlasses at the ready."

"Don't give the universe a fucking reason," Revy warned her. "The sooner shit gets back to normal, the better." Eda just laughed openly when she heard that.

"'Back to normal?' Wow, you really are as dumb as you look." Revy scowled at her and looked back at her cards as she prepared to play the winning hand.

"Say that again and I'll give you another hole to shit through."