The Story of Blood and Roses

"I\'ll be acting as the middleman in the transfer of information between you and Darcy," Nolan said. I looked over at Anthony who had a satisfied smile on his lips, his eyes still closed. "You know the price we are offering to pay in exchange for the information, Joe. Just give the details to me and you\'ll receive the money."

"Would you mind repeating everything? I would like to re-establish the contract so that I can find no loopholes in it. I want to protect myself. That is why I asked you to meet me in a public setting. I do not trust you or your master." I could hear the sneer in Joe\'s voice and I would assume that he had caught the wind of gossip and found out the treatment of low life informants that Darcy contacted. Darcy skilfully did away with these people so that his business decisions couldn\'t come back to bite him in the ass. It was probably a good thing that he did so because I would be rather pleased if we had nothing to do with the murder of the pimp. And this little game made people fear Darcy. You were either resourceful and loyal to the man, or dead; if you were loyal to him: he would shower you with money and make you a rich man.

"You\'re going to be twenty grand richer if your news is authenticated as true," Nolan began. Of course, Joe had to cut in and put forward a piece of his own licentious mind.

"But I could get the money from anywhere that I wanted. Someone would be prepared to pay a higher price for this invaluable information than you are."

"I am not paying you, Luke Darcy is." The firmness in Nolan\'s voice was new and I had imagined him to be fidgety. Was it the pressure of going undercover that had him off his game during the meeting? Or was it my presence and not Anthony\'s that threw him off? It was a curious case, but we would find out.

"That doesn\'t make a difference. I don\'t like you lot. There is no security in trading with you," I heard Joe say. It was an act of self-preservation then, and a good one at that. He would get killed if he made the wrong choice this day and I didn\'t even know which decision was wrong.

"There is no security in not trading with us, either. I think you are intelligent enough to realize that the odds are stacked against you in both cases and that chances are that you\'ll survive if you give us the information that we demand of you." The authority in his tone stunned me. I was intrigued by the turn of events. I didn\'t have to wonder for long as to if the man would spill his guts or not. "You are a poor businessman to have not listened to the proposal in details when I was offering it to you, Joe. As I was about to tell you previously, you may be richer if the information you provide is true or no one will even look at your corpse as you lay in the dumpster with the cash stuffed in every orifice of yours." At this sudden threat, both Anthony and I broke out into surprised laughter at the cultured language that the man was using.

"She spoke like a parrot. I\'ll give you the information, but you need to give me the cash first," I heard Joe bargain. It was uncannily amusing when you knew that the man was going to die and he still cared so much about the cash that he was being offered. He didn\'t even seem to miss a beat to reply to that threat that was issued to him. Was he that shameless or was he crass enough to think that the threats would not be carried out? When one was living in the alternate world as long as he was, he was a matured man and was bound to know that a threat was always carried out and given the same importance as a blood oath in witchcraft.

We heard the shuffling of feet and then it seemed like they had isolated themselves in a silent place where they started talking.

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