Pieces Sliding in Place
13th of November 2006 A.D.
Contrary to what most of his associates and some of hie foes even might say Gentleman Johnny Marcone did not get to be master of Chicago's underbelly by being the most ruthless son of a bitch between Roger's Park and Southshore, nor by being the most thrifty with men and money, the best hand at bribing, though in his estimation those skills came closer. It was because he was not in the habit of underestimating people... ever. So when he found out that a vampire high in in the family, the
royal family was running a salon his first thought was not useless 'useless layabout' or 'keeping someone who bats for the other team out of the limelight', both of which he had seen old school mafiosos do. He was missing something... as it happens he was missing the way life-leech vampires fed. Thomas Raith was apparently one for... sustainable husbandry rather than the pattern of long term feeding leaving lives broken and cut short that was the norm of his sort.
Someone who he could be business with, the crime lord concluded, especially if he was estranged from his family. Alas his hints at a partnership had fallen on deaf ears and he could respect that, you don't push people into the 'business', that is how you end up pushed out windows. But not pushing wasn't the same as turning a blind eye, things could after all change
Then things had changed and not in an altogether comfortable way
Two months ago things had changed, a new business Chicago Synthetics, working with artificial diamonds, which to anyone who had more of a sniff of crime than a pulling babe said either scam or smuggling. Since it did not look to be fishing for investors it seemed to be more likely the latter than the former. Another man in Marcone's place might have gotten upset at the gal of someone trying to set up smuggling in something as flashy as diamonds on his turf, but Thomas was new to side of the city, even if not as young as he appeared
So he had ordered surveillance for the properties associated with the company white he went digging around city hall for people who could tell him more about it, or lean on the regulatory authorities. What they had found was 'Supergirl' as his organization had come to referring to Miss Carpenter following Gard's first report on her and Hendriks' suggestion that calling a seventeen year old girl 'Superman' would just confuse people. So the operative had gone radio silent, thrown their phone in the nearest dumpster and had an in person debrief.
Phone calls were made, favors were called in, the kind of people who both dealt in diamonds and the company of Johnny Marcone were wined and dined to suitably expensive standards to get them talking. In one case it was a wilderness retreat to one of those places that cost such an ungodly sum to bring all the comforts of civilization to the middle of the woods that John wondered why anyone would bother. But he got his answers, the diamonds were genuine and most likely not made by any mundane means given that Chicago Synthetics was not drawing anywhere near the amount of energy it should, leaving aside the industrial machinery, trained technicians which it seemed to lack. Pulling any harder on that thread was liable to precipitate a confrontation so instead he started looking for where the money might be spent
It wasn't the first time John had to identify a target he could not afford to directly tail. It almost made him feel nostalgic. Schoolgirls even schoolgirls with 'near-divine power and authority' did not follow proper op-sec. She had used the path up in the old meat-packing plant to get up and down to Undertown multiple times to get good, amenities, supplies down there.
It had not taken Gard a long time to find the Jade Dogs though it had taken him a moment to realize what he was looking at.
Bloody medieval manuscripts on ghouls. A phantom pain passes his temple. Even translated into proper English they were still eight tenths bullshit by weight.
"She is exposing them to humans, especially the weak and the helpless as a way to train them out of opportunistic predation like Raith has been living," he formulated his thoughts aloud to Gard who nodded, but also offered the same warnings she had before about a direct confrontation.
John snorted. "I don't want to fight her. Why should I? We neither claim undertown nor lose anything out of the diamond buisness. I want to make her a proposal. After all if she can work with cannibals what's a few made guys"
OOC: I did make rolls but you guys do not get to see them since they would be rather spoiler-y. 
