Chapter 2: Anna's big daddy
The details, the details of the job. A baby sitter's job from hell with details that eludes the fame private eye of Atlantic City, detective Kiryu. He spends his entire night drinking Whisky, reviewing the contract of his job, but still nothing was clear for him, who was this girl Elizabeth, why did she come to him? What was her job, what kind of a mess that she gotten into that forces her to meet him? No answers can be given to him instantly, this he knows. Eventually, he was bored, tired by enigma that was facing him, he fell into slumber, a deep slumber that was like any other human. His vision begins to fade away, his HUD's information boxes began to close, finally his very sight was gone, all were darkness. He let his mind drifted freely inside this darkness, in the sea of subconsciousness. The sea where he once rule, the place he felt contend, where he felt like home, but this dream wasn't like any other he had experienced. He was drifting, somewhere out in the ocean, at midnight, he saw only one light source, a large cubical light house, not on an island, but at the middle of the ocean. It has spot lights on it, stairs to walk to the front gate, he swam to the light house, and walk up the stairs in curiosity, he look at the art deco gates of the light house, there were decorated with the image of a man, bold, rise from bottom to greatness of above wielding a sledgehammer in his hands.
He push the doors open and found inside a large golden statue of a Walt Disney look a like man, and a large gold embezzled slogan on a red banner that says:"No gods or kings, only men." He follows the stairs of the light house's interior down to a sphererical submarine, somewhere about that sub that draws him inside it, sitting down on one of its couch and pull the leverof the sub. The sub began to dive deeper and deeper into the bottom of the ocean, down to a city, a city at the bottom of the ocean. While the sub was moving from the light house through the ocean to the city, a short movie slide down and shows Kiryu where he was going to. "I am Andrew Ryan, and i am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to sweat on his brown? No, says the man of Washington it belongs to the poor. No, says the man of the Vatican, it belongs to god. No, says the man of Moscow, it belongs to everyone. I rejected those answers, instead i choose something different. I chose the impossible, i chose, Rapture. A city where artists would not be feared of censorship, where the scientists are bound by petty morality, where the great are not restrain by the small. And with the sweat on your brown, Rapture can become your city as well."
But as he come closer and closer to the docking bay of this art deco underwater Utopia, he heard something. A sound like the one of little girl, running, screamming, desperately calling for help while running away from her unknown pursuers. It was then that his dream ended, he heard the sound of his phone ringing next to him, he struggled to get back to his senses, his optics kick back in action, he got up of his desk and pick up his phone. "Hello, PI Kiryu here? What? Elizabeth murdered? Where? 112th Beauty 4life? I'll be there in 5 mintues or so!" Kiryu quickly got off of his table and grab the key to his car, his M1911 pistol, wallet and badge and head out immediately to the address that was provided to him by the police. He got down from the first floor of his apartment and opens the door of his black 1940 Packard Henney Super 8 and drove away to his destination.
Through the highly decorated, glamorous night life streets of the downtown area, he finally came to the crime scene, the police were all around the area, keeping shock and awe crowd away from the dead body, the press were struggling to get through to take some precious photos of the crime scene. But Kiryu went through the crowd gently shove aside, moving to inspect the now deceased Elizabeth, there she lies on the ground, her face was still gorgeouse like an angel, she still wore the same dress that he saw when she came to meet him. But there wasn't any bullet holes, knife slash or thrust marks on her, no blood on the ground, everything was too clean. "Any ideas how did she died?" Kiryu asked the forensic team curiously. "Nope, not a clue, normally we would see a puddle of blood, bullet holes or melee wounds. But this, is too clean. Too clean for a homicidal case." Unease by his answer, Kiryu took a careful look at Elizabeth, checking her body to see if there are any hidden clues that human can't see. He found something that caught his curiosity, her nose was radiating something, something poisonous to human. It was a dangerous colorized substance use in industry, the sewing industry, but this on her, it was faulty, poor quality and life threatening as well. "Did you find anything? I saw your eyes got that tick." Asked comissioner Marston, the one and only honest cop that Kiryu trusted.
"I did, but right now i need to do a favor she asked me before her death." Kiryu walks back into his car, followed by comissioner Knight, the 54 years old glasses wearring moustache caucasian in brown trench coat, gray trousers and white shirt get into Kiryu's car, sitting right next to the bio mecha dinosaur. "So what did she ask you?" He asked curiously, Kiryu rev up his engine and start driving to where Elizabeth's home, "Protection. She wanted me to protect her daughter. She said that one of the five families is aftering her. So she wanted me to adopt her daughter if any "Misfortune" be fall upon her." Kiryu replied in cold, cynical manner to Marston, but his voice wasn't like the monotone, computerized voice. But rather deep, cynical, manly voice. He drove through to the apartment area of the heavily populated street of 45th Sheridan drive, where most of the middle class citizens of Atlantic City resides. It wasn't the dirtiest or the weathiest place to live, but at least it's a place where Kiryu wanted to move to if he can afford a better apartment. "There it is, 324/9 C Mabel and Dipper intersection. Her apartment is on the 2nd floor. Watch the car Marston." Kiryu exited his car and went up to the second floor. He found the right apartment number 6, he knock on the door three times and hear someone was coming to answer.
As the door open, he look down to ground and saw a little girl, her hair is dark just like her mother, only her hair cut in a bowl shape around the face with an even line curving to an oval frame. In her brown eyes, they were angelic innocense, looking in to Kiryu amber tinted lenses, he felt her weak, feeble, fragile nature begging for his protection. "Are you here to adopt me?" Anna asked Kiryu. tears began to fell down her eyes, knowing that her mother is gone. "Yes, i'll help you pack your belongings. But don't worry, the people who kill your mother, won't be able to come for you. Not with i on the watch." Kiryu knelted down holding Anna in his protective, metallic arms, wiping away her tears and help her pack her luggages and went down to his car. He put her luggage inside the trunk of his car and fasten her seat belt in the back seat, then he came back to the driver seat and drove back to his home. "You sure that you want to keep her around at your place. Underprivilidge part of town is a danger zone." Marston insisted Kiryu on letting him protect little Anna Townley, but for Kiryu, if the cops aren't honest and are all corrupted, then there will be no way he would let the police not even comissioner Marston protect Anna.
"Look Marston, at least the 'Under privilidged' part of town i find it quieter and safer than your police station. You and i have seen with our own two eyes, the cops they are corrupted. No way they're gonna protect little Anna Townley, they're gonna sold her out to the mob as soon as one of the five families got horn of where she's at." Kiryu's rejection was firm and straight to point. And he had good reason for rejecting the police's offer to lighten the burden off of his back, here in Atlantic City, no one is to be trusted, defeating the five families, one must know the game of cat and mouse, cloak and dagger, telling out the enemy's ruses and fool them with your own ruses is a must if victory is a number one priority. This is something no authority around town has ever learned before, instead, ever since the "Prohibition" time, the high time of gangland activities, La Cosa Nostra has shown their experienced and effectiveness and cunnings with the authorities that they aren't the easy to beaten gangsters low life scums. But they are organized groups with political backings, rich and powerful, they control everything the flows in and out of their territory. To keep their operations secret, they use the lawyers, cops, judges, politicians as insurance policies.
Finally arrived at his home sweet home, Kiryu open the door of his car and escort Anna up to her new home on the second floor of the three storage apartment building, he unpacked he luggages and help her settled in, "Anna, there's a caretaker on the ground floor, she'll take care while i'm out to do some jobs. Here's my number, call me when you need me, okay?" Kiryu gave her his phone number written on a piece of paper. "Mr Kiryu, you promised that you'll protect me. You really promised?" Her innocent nature touched Kiryu's harden heart, he gently hug her into chest, craddling her to sleep. "I promised. I promised you."