Lonely Thieves

Act II, Part I

Act II: Pursuit

Kolya's Side (April 7, 10:00 pm)

Kolya sat down at his table, pulled out a headset from his pocket and put the earbud into his ear. He sat in silence for a moment until the sound of a car could be heard above the static. Good. The bug was working, and it looked like Amoretto hadn't noticed it. It had been a bit of a risk trying to get it onto his clothes, but thankfully he'd had a chance when Amoretto passed him on his way out. He definitely knew more about the necklace than he did, and he was determined to find out what it was.

For the next few minutes, Kolya could only hear the sound of the car's quiet hum and Amoretto softly puffing a cigarette. However, after another few minutes of what was essentially silence, Kolya picked up on the sound of button presses and the beeps of an interface. He assumed Amoretto was trying to call someone, and the sound of ringing confirmed it.

"Amoretto," a gravelly voice emitted from the car speakers. Kolya recognized it as a voice belonging to Salvatore Innocenti, the second son of the current Innocenti boss, Matteo Innocenti.

"Salvatore!" Amoretto exclaimed with a jovial tone. "How's the wife?"

"No small talk, Amoretto. Give me your report."

"I talked to Markov. I don't think we'll be able to use him."

"I thought not. Someone truly loyal would never have retired in the first place."

"Well, don't worry. More importantly, he doesn't seem to know about the necklace."

"Good. If it was just a job done on a whim, then all the better. Make sure he doesn't involve himself further in this."

Kolya heard Amoretto take another puff of his cigarette. "What about the emerald necklace? The boss wanted us to do something about it."

"Pa says the Hayasakas must get their necklace back no matter what. In addition, we need to make sure our own necklace isn't stolen."

"So what do you want me to do about it? Our guys are already on high alert."

"This is serious, Amoretto. We need more firepower than what we got now. We need to make it clear that we are not to be messed with."

"Sure, Sal. Just give me some time and I'll get things all squared out."

"You do good work, Amoretto. If you weren't such a piece of shit, I'd be worried about my position."

The two chatted for a little while longer, but none of it seemed to be relevant to the situation at hand. As Kolya idly listened to the conversation in one ear, he thought about what he had just managed to learn. It seemed like there was another necklace after all. As someone who only worked as an assassin, Kolya had very little knowledge of the inner workings of the Innocenti family, so he had never heard of such a necklace. In other words, it was something that was extremely important. At the same time, it was related to the Hayasaka family as well.

Kolya stood up and left his house. The bug was a self-disassembling type that would crumble if left alone, so there was no need to worry about it being discovered. Theorizing and analyzing information while sitting at a desk could only go so far. He needed information, and he knew just where to get it. He got in his car and drove out to the eastern side of the Sunrise district, home to a large number of ex-mafia members who wanted to live out their retirement in peace.

His destination was the home of an ex-capo named Marco Bassani, someone he had worked with many times during his assassin days. After fifty years of loyal service to the Innocenti family, Bassani now lived alone in an upscale mansion with only a few carers to take care of his everyday necessities. Kolya rang the doorbell and an attendant answered the door. It was a little late for a visit, but Bassani was an old friend. He wouldn't mind the intrusion.

"You've changed quite a bit with old age," Bassani remarked as he stepped into the foyer with only a cane to support him. "To think you'd make a visit on a whim like this... you should have called beforehand."

Kolya handed his coat to the attendant and unveiled a bottle of vintage wine. "The thought came to me as I was driving through the area. It's been a long time since last we yet. A little drink for old times' sake wouldn't hurt, would it?"

Bassani snickered as he guided Kolya to his living room. The two of them sat on soft leather armchairs as the attendant brought two wine glasses and poured drinks for the two of them. Bassani took his glass and sipped at the wine Kolya had brought.

"What a wonderful taste," Bassani chuckled. "You always did know good wine."

"I always had to," Kolya smirked. "Remember old Giordano?"

"Giordano!" Bassani threw back his head and laughed. "He always did get mad when you got it wrong."

"That was always the worst part of working with him. Remember that job we did with the Rothford gang?"

The two of them spoke for an hour about old memories. While the talk was quite nostalgic, Kolya had more in mind than just reliving the old days. He was trying to get Bassani to trip up and reveal something he wasn't supposed to say. He had always been weak about alcohol, and the wine Kolya had brought was particularly strong. He could clearly see that as the night went on, Bassani was starting to look a little looser, even with little sips of wine. With a slight push, Bassani might end up saying something he wasn't supposed to.

Kolya decided to risk it by pushing forward with a more delicate subject. "We've done a lot of dirty work in lives, haven't we, Bassani?"

"That we did. I don't regret it, but I know we did a lot of people wrong. Sometimes when it's too quiet I find myself thinking about it. Getting old makes you sentimental, I suppose."

"Indeed. I also think of the people I've killed every now and then. Remember Giovanni Campana?"

"The young boss of the Campana family? I remember him. Tried to steal clients out from under us twenty years back."

"Well, I killed him then. Didn't have any hard feelings about it. But when his girl came in and saw him with his brains blown out, I can't say that I didn't feel a thorn in my heart then."

"That's what living in the underworld is like. You can't survive if you let yourself feel that way about every job. Course, I can't say I don't know what you mean."

"Oh? Are you saying even you had a job you regretted?"

"Of course. That matter with Matsuoka... that was just no good."

"Matsuoka?" That was a name that sounded familiar, but Kolya couldn't place it. However, it was clear that Bassani had not meant to mention it. His slightly flushed face suddenly turned deathly pale, and his eyes darted back and forth with worry.

"No... it's nothing. Never mind that."

Kolya closed his eyes and sipped his drink. It was better not to press too hard on this particular subject. He'd rather not have Bassani suspect that he was up to something, and either way, Bassani was not so sloppy that he would talk with a bit of prodding.

After about another ten minutes of small talk, Kolya bid Bassani farewell and left his home. He got in his car, turned on the autopilot, and leaned back in his seat as his car began cruising out onto the streets of the Sunrise district. He didn't get much from Bassani, but he didn't plan on getting much in the first place. Bassani didn't rise up to the rank of capo by having loose lips, after all. Even something as minor as a name was a victory.

Kolya took out his tablet and began screening the internet. Unfortunately, Matsuoka was by no means a unique name, and a lot of the search results seemed irrelevant to what he was looking for. Still, he persevered, making sure to scrutinize even the most innocuous mention of the name Matsuoka.

As his car drove up to his apartment complex, Kolya's efforts bore fruit. He had started adding various keywords to his searches and finally found a conspiracy website where people gathered to discuss the various scandals and cover-ups of Twilight. That by itself was not particularly suspicious, but the post an anonymous user had made about Matsuoka was.

There was a lot of paranoid chatter about secret takeovers and neo-nobility regimes, but Kolya was able to gather together some information he deemed relevant to his current search. The poster spoke of a man named Matsuoka who was a part of the Hayasaka Zaibatsu, and that plotting between the Three Great Families of Twilight wiped the man and all mention of him and his family from the city. Comments like these accusing the Three Great Families of shady activities were far from infrequent, but if Bassani's reaction was any indicator, there was likely some truth to this rumor.

Kolya put away his tablet, then got out of his car and walked the steps up to his house. He then pulled out his phone and made a call to an old friend of his. The man's true name was unknown to him, but he had always called him Alvarez, and he was a hacker who frequently made fools of Twilight's Cyber Security division.

A groggy voice picked up the phone on the other side. "What do you need, Markov? I really am busy, you know."

"Can you hack into the Night Hunt boards?"

"The Night Hunt boards? What do you want that for?"

"I want to see if there was a certain job done in the past few months or so."

An annoyed grumble came over the phone. "I knew it'd be trouble. You never come to me with easy jobs, do you?"

"If it was something easy, I'd do it myself."

"Impressive for an old man, I suppose." Alvarez sighed. "I can do the job. But you need to give me some time! I can't hack something like the Night Hunt boards in a day."

"That's fine. It's not info I need right away. Make sure you don't get caught."

"I don't need you to worry about me, damn it. Just make sure you have your payment ready."

After explaining the various details, Alvarez hung up the phone without as much as a goodbye. Kolya smirked and sat down on his couch as he continued to scroll through his tablet again. Unfortunately, he couldn't find anything else that seemed to correlate with what he had found so far. It was a long shot, but he had really hoped that there would be more to support his findings. Kolya continued to search the internet for information as the night continued to grow long.

Suddenly, he woke up with a start. He looked around, and noticed that sunlight was now streaming into the room through the blinds on his windows. He looked at his tablet and noticed the time. 7:30 am. He had fallen asleep at some point last night. He stretched his arms and pondered his options. First things first, he would need to get some breakfast.

While he poured himself some coffee, Kolya received a call from Alvarez. He quickly picked up the call as he placed some bread into a toaster and turned on the speakerphone.

"Markov, you aren't getting me mixed up in anything dangerous, are you?"

"You didn't get caught, did you?"

"Of course not. But this job... even seeing it might put me at risk."

"So you found one?" Kolya turned his attention to his phone.

"I did. It was a request asking for someone to steal a sapphire necklace from the home of the Neumann family."

"The Neumanns that own the Overman Foundation?"

"Looks like it." Alvarez uploaded a screenshot of the request onto Kolya's phone. Kolya scanned the request. It looked exactly like the job he had taken before. The only difference was the target and the kind of necklace that was taken.

"Is this request completed?"

"Yeah. I tried looking around, but it looks like the Neumanns didn't report anything happening at their home, so either that's a lie or the Neumanns didn't want this theft getting out."

Kolya scratched his chin thoughtfully. It's true that it was possible that the request was falsely completed, but he doubted that the client would not confirm the theft of the necklace before closing the request. So the Neumanns must have decided to keep this knowledge out of the media. Was it to hide the existence of the necklace? Things were starting to connect, but what did it mean?

Kolya ended the call with Alvarez and headed to his living room with a rather sparse breakfast of buttered toast and coffee. He flipped on the television to a breaking news report that nearly made him drop his mug.

"Last night, the Hayasaka mansion was burgled by thieves. Tom Hayasaka is set to release a statement to the Twilight Police Department. More information coming soon."