The Buy In
Chapter 2: Taking Out the Trash
by @dracusfyre
“So who exactly are these cops hassling?” Bucky asked the next day as he met up with a man called Kenton at a bodega on 6th. “The shops? Dealers?”
“The ladies,” Kenton 'call me KT' said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. KT was stocky and short, with an aggressive undercut and stud in his lip, looking more like an emo kid than a mob enforcer. “We don’t have dealers here.”
“Really? None?" When KT nodded, Bucky asked, "How come?”
When KT eyeballed him skeptically, Bucky said, “Look, it’s my first day, alright? I’m not from around here.”
“Everyone knows the boss hates drugs,” KT said, hitting the button for the crosswalk. “Like, hates. A few years ago he tried to run all the dealers out, but they kept coming back like weeds. Too much demand to keep them out for long, you know? So the boss figures, you don’t kill weeds by cutting them down, you kill them at the roots. So he started targeting the users, not the dealers. First, he bought up the local methadone clinic, set up a rehab house nearby, brought in a bunch of fancy docs. Puts the word out that anyone who wants to dry out can stay for free and gets a sweet deal when you get your ninety-day chip.”
Bucky frowned. “I remember that. The mayor cut the ribbon on the facility, right? I thought the city set up that clinic.”
“Ha!” KT said it like that, an actual ha. “The boss let them take credit for it, sure. But it was his idea and his money. Once he got the clinic up and running, he put the word out to all the dealers, making them an offer: sell him all your goods, give him your client list, and you get a new job that pays twice what dealing does.”
“What happens if the dealer doesn’t take the offer?”
“One day they find themselves on a cargo ship to Madagascar,” KT said, matter of fact. “Or Indonesia, or Kamchatka.” Bucky doubted that but kept it to himself; it was way more likely that the dealers got dumped in the river while Stark’s organization sold the drugs at a markup. But it was a good story. “Stoners can stay if they grow their shit locally,” KT continued, “but the party bros looking for bumps gotta get it somewhere else. But God help them if they make trouble, because the boss sure won’t.”
“Huh,” Bucky said, noncommittal. “So what are we doing today? Waiting for the cops to show their faces again?”
“Pretty much. Gonna talk to the ladies, then we’ll hang around and see if the pigs come back and let them know that their behavior is not appreciated.” A few more blocks down, KT knocked on an unassuming red door and led Bucky into a whole new world. He’d known when KT said ladies that he’d meant prostitutes and had braced himself for the worst: bare mattresses on the ground, barred windows, dull eyes and needle tracks. But what Bucky walked into looked more like the Waldorf than any brothel Bucky’d ever seen during his brief tour on Vice. Bucky tried not to stare as he took in the thick carpet and tasteful furnishings around the room, with women scattered around in groups chatting. Along one side of the room was a classy bar with mahogany wood and brass furnishings that had a few customers already despite the fact it was barely 5:30. KT approached the bartender, a petite but statuesque redhead with pinup curls wearing a corset that had, if Bucky’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, knives where the boning would be.
“Evening, Widow,” KT said, and the bartender gave him a grin as she slid a beer to the man across from her.
“Evening, gents,” she said, voice pure Georgia drawl. “So did the Iron Man himself send someone down to check on his chickadees?”
“Iron Man?” Bucky echoed in confusion. “You mean the Mechanic?”
“You must be new,” she said with amusement, and KT nodded. “He’s got lots of names, honey. He likes getting them and giving them. Bet he gave you a name, didn’t he?” she said, crossing her arms and leaning on the bar to give him an appreciative once-over. The pose made her look like she was going to spill out of her corset; didn’t do a thing for Bucky, but behind them the man with the beer walked into the back of a couch. “What does he call you?”
Ridiculously, Bucky felt his ears get hot. “Blue Eyes,” he said. “Probably like Jimmy Blue Eyes, I guess, but I don't know why. My name's not James.”
“It’s cuz of them pretty blue eyes of yours,” Widow said, and she laughed as Bucky felt the flush spread to his neck. “He must have taken a shine to you.”
“We're here about those cops you mentioned,” KT cut in, giving her cleavage a glance of appreciation but staying all business. “Stop teasing the help and give us the rundown.”
Widow gave Bucky another sultry smile and stood up straight. As she picked up a glass and rag and started polishing, the Georgia peach act fell away; her movements going from languorous to brisk. “Like I said to the boss, it was Rumlow and Rollins again,” she said, and Bucky’s eyebrows went up as even the accent disappeared. “They must think they got a pretty strong krishna to keep coming around here. They’ve got some of the new girls rattled. Came in just the other night trying to get a 'law enforcement discount,'" she said with a sneer, "and the only way we got them out of here without violence is Hawkeye got them too drunk to know if they were coming or going.” Widow tilted her head towards a man at the far end of the bar who looked like he was passed out, hat drawn down low over his eyes. “I wouldn’t have asked for backup if they weren’t cops, but.” She shrugged, and Bucky understood. Low level patsani, or even higher level enforcers, could disappear, but not a cop. “They also wanted a cut of what we pay to the Boss and wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell them it didn’t work like that.”
“What do you mean?” Bucky asked. "Doesn't work like what?"
Widow and KT shared a look. “He’s new,” he reminded her, and Widow smiled.
“Around here you don’t pay up, you buy in,” she said. “You’ll see.” She stepped away to take an order before Bucky could ask another question, so he turned back to KT.
“What are we going to do about the cops when they show up?” Bucky asked. Most times dirty cops got away with shaking down illegal businesses for money because it’s not like a bunch of criminals were going to rat them out to Internal Affairs. “Ask politely?”
“I have a few ideas,” KT said, sounding unconcerned. Bucky waited for him to say something else, but he apparently didn’t seem like sharing, so Bucky grunted and turned to scan the lounge.
While they’d been talking, a few more men, johns, Bucky assumed, had trickled in and were in conversation with the women, each of which were giving every indication that the man they were sitting next to was the funniest and most interesting man in the world. Guess that was one appeal of this place, Bucky thought; a man would never strike out here, and they probably spent good money to maintain the illusion that they were getting laid on their own merits. “Are all of the Boss's brothels like this?”
KT looked around like he was seeing the place for the first time. “Yeah,” he said, lifting one shoulder carelessly. “Boss invests in his people.”
Bucky supposed that made sense. Better margins in higher end prostitution. Still, it was strange to feel like he was hanging out in a hotel bar, complete with tipsy-looking couples disappearing into elevators to hook up. It was after 9 when the cops showed, still, stupidly enough, in uniform. Bucky suppressed the urge to curl his lip in disgust; these guys represented everything Bucky hated about his job, full of arrogance and spite and a thinly veiled hunger for violence. They were bullies, pure and simple, and Bucky hoped he would have a chance to punch one in the face. He could get away with it, too, if he told his superiors it was necessary to maintain his cover.
KT saw them the same time Bucky did; as they came closer to the bar, he slid off his barstool and put himself in their path.
“Who are you supposed to be?” The lead one sneered, looking down at KT, who was a good six inches shorter than the officer. “Are you supposed to be protecting these whores? You?” Bucky came up behind him to back him up and read the officer’s badge. Rumlow. He memorized his badge number and that of the second officer, Rollins.
“Welcome back, officers,” KT said with a faint smile. “How can we help you?”
“Last time we asked nicely for our money, and we didn’t get it,” Rumlow said, coming closer so he was looming over KT. “We also asked for some trade, and didn’t get that either. We’re not going to ask nicely again.”
“Let me buy you a drink,” KT said, taking a step backward and gesturing towards the bar. “And let’s have a conversation, yeah?”
“We’re not here for no fucking conversation,” Rumlow spat. “We’re here for our money and a good lay, not necessarily in that order.”
“Fine.” KT’s friendly tone disappeared and his posture changed, going from relaxed and open to a coiled, snakelike tension, ready for violence. Bucky had seen that stance before, in his hand to hand combat training class at the academy. “We’ll cut to the chase.” Widow was watching them intently, a throwing knife already in her hand. Movement out of the corner of his eye proved that the man, Hawkeye, wasn’t as passed out as he appeared to be; Bucky could see light reflecting off the barrel of something, aimed at Rumlow. “For you to be coming in here like this, swinging your dick around, two things gotta be true: you must have protection, some fish big enough that you aren’t afraid of the Mechanic, and that big fish knows you’re here and doesn’t care. If that’s the case, then your boss and my boss are going to have problems. But if either of those things is not true, you are in a world of shit.”
At that, Rollins stole an uneasy glance at Rumlow, who was still trying to stare down KT. It was quick, but it gave the game away – and KT knew it, because suddenly he smiled and relaxed, which made Rumlow scowl harder. “Busted,” he said. “It’s not going to be hard to find out who your protection is, officers. And I don’t think they are going to be happy that you are picking fights with the Mechanic. Am I right?”
“Fuck you,” Rumlow snarled, and swung at KT. But the smaller man was ready, and KT stepped to one side of the swing, then grabbed Rumlow’s wrist and pulled at the same time that he put a hand on the back of his head and shoved, sending the man stumbling. Textbook judo move, to Bucky's eyes. As his partner got his feet under him again, Rollins went for his gun but Bucky already had his hand on it, shoving back down into its holster.
“Let’s keep it a fair fight,” Bucky said in a low voice, and Rollins listened because Bucky’s other hand had a knife slid up under the bottom edge of his bullet proof vest.
“Don’t make this any worse than it already is,” KT was saying, Rumlow’s face bright red with fury. “The Boss will let bygones be bygones if you leave now and don’t come back, but if blood gets shed...” He shook his head.
Rumlow’s face was red and Bucky could tell that he was furious at having been humiliated by someone smaller and lighter than him. Bucky was afraid that he would go for his pistol, but instead he put his hands up like he was in a boxing ring. KT smiled faintly and just made a “come here,” gesture, and that’s when Bucky knew he was trying to piss him off. And it worked; Rumlow lunged, swinging with a tight haymaker that would easily have broken KT’s jaw.
If it had connected, that is. But instead of trying to block, KT dropped to one knee, ducking under the swing, and hit Rumlow in the dick with an elbow as he scooped his leg and stood, throwing Rumlow to the ground where he curled around himself, cursing incoherently with pain.
Bucky whistled long and low, smothering a laugh. KT laid that asshole out in seconds. He released Rollins and said, “You can have your turn now, if you want.”
“That’s assault on an officer,” Rollins snarled, trying to help Rumlow to his feet. “I should haul you down to the station for that.”
“Your buddy clearly started it,” Bucky said. “It’s not like you don’t have witnesses. I’d get out of here before he does anything worse.” Bucky didn’t know if it was the fact that Rumlow still couldn’t stand up straight or the way that everyone was staring at them, but Rollins seemed to know good advice when he heard it, because they did leave, shouting threats the entire way.
“Did you get all that?” KT called out after the door slammed shut behind them, heading back to the bar where the Widow’s knife had disappeared like she’d never drawn it in the first place.
“Every second,” Hawkeye rumbled, sitting up. The barrel that Bucky had seen was a high-end camera lens, not a gun; he’d been videotaping the whole encounter. “Uploading it to YouTube now. That should get them off the streets for a while.”
“That’s how the Boss likes to settle things,” KT said with satisfaction. When he noticed Bucky looking at him with confusion, he said, “Listen here, because this is important: the Boss doesn’t like us to kill people. We don’t do this whole ‘send our guy to the hospital, we send your guy to the morgue’ thing, got it? We send them to the poorhouse. The poor bastard gets so tied up in lawsuits, repossessions, revoked passports, suspended licenses, and investigations that he wishes he were dead. Then the Boss goes after the poor bastard’s boss, and that boss’s boss…mobsters, dons, whatever you want to call them, they don’t mind dying, but they never, ever want to be broke. You start threating their bottom line and they pay attention.”
“Seriously?” Bucky said skeptically. Stark’s file said that he had plenty of blood on his hands.
“Seriously. You might get a pass if you don’t start it, but if it happens again, he cuts you loose, and believe me, it doesn’t take the cops long to track you down. They are hungry for anything they can get on the Boss.”
“You don't say,” Bucky said blandly. "So now what do we do?"
"We're going to stick around until the ladies close up shop, make sure those two don't get any bright ideas to circle back." KT pulled out his phone and started typing in it as he got back on his barstool where the ice in his drink had barely had time to melt. "Hawkeye usually makes sure the clientele behave themselves, so you can have a drink, but don't proposition any of the ladies while you're working."
"Right." What a strange goddamn way to run a criminal enterprise. After a moment, Bucky took a seat beside him and accepted a drink menu from the Widow, whose mouth was curling like she could read Bucky's thoughts.
"You'll get used to it, Blue Eyes," she said. "I got a good feeling about you."
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