594 Because of you
“All of you inside the vehicle step out now!” A voice shouted from outside.
Looking through the window Gary could see a man with a baseball bat. He was slapping it into the palm of his hand and behind him at the border there were a number of people. Naturally Gary started to count how many of them there were, and it looked to be around ten in total.
‘If it’s just ten of them, then I can deal with them, but the problem is, why are they even here in the first place?’ Gary thought.
“Everyone, let’s just listen to what they have to say, this isn’t our territory. We didn’t expect this to happen.” Maz said, as he pushed a button to open the side of the van door to let the others out.
Izzy had told Gary some of the details. In order to set up the appointment quickly and not to cause too much trouble for Gary, Izzy and her parents were to meet him in a nearby town. The town was a nearby tier-3 town and chosen for safety reasons.
If someone caught wind that a member of the Howlers was entering a tier-2 city that wasn’t owned by them, then she feared it would ruffle a few feathers.
Since Maz was the oldest of the group, he went ahead first, and stopped to confront the man that stood in their way.
“I’m sorry, it's been a while since we were last in this town. Has something happened?” Maz asked.
The man with the baseball bat looked behind them before answering.
“The town is now under the care of the Rhino Horns!” The man pointed to himself. “To enter the town safely, we require an entrance fee, for five of you… that would be 1000.”
It appeared as if the man had made the number up on the spot. There wouldn’t be many people that would just carry a 1000 around on them, even if there were five of them, but the van that they were travelling in wasn’t exactly run down.
Izzy’s family invested a lot in their food business and upgraded their vans whenever they could. On top of that, there was a till inside that contained quite a bit of cash.
“This wasn’t the case before sis, what happened?” One of the men asked. They were too far away to be heard by the others up front, and whispered just in case.
“This is somewhat of a guess, but an educated guess.” Shanesea said, looking at Gary. “Although this town wasn’t owned by a gang in the past. They were kept in check by the Scatterbugs and were on their payroll.
“I heard that there were actually a lot of tier 3 town gangs that worked for the Scatterbugs. Since they're no longer a thing, the gangs have gone back to their more traditional way of making money.”
Gary understood what Shanesea was saying, that somehow this was indirectly his fault. The Howlers were the one that took out the Scatterbugs and although they kept most of the businesses running in Notsburg they didn’t continue on with the small or dark parts of their business.
That wasn’t Gary’s way, but he was unaware of what ripple effect it had.
‘I remember Kai saying that the Scatterbugs had also asked us to do some of their dirty work. Since Slough has been less impacted by the local troublemakers these days, I forgot that most cities and towns were actually like this.’
“1000… that seems a bit exorbitant.” Maz said with a nervous smile. “I’m happy to pay you an entrance fee, but can’t you come up with something more reasonable.”
There and then, out of nowhere, the man swung his fist, and hit Maz right across the face. It was a clean hit, and it buckled Maz’s legs a bit, but he didn’t fall to the ground. One could see that the attacker was a bit startled by this, as a strong surprise attack would knock one over, but Maz, although a cook, was a wall of muscle.
“The price is the price, and that's final, the man said. You either give it to us, or we will forcefully take it from you.” The baseball bat man said, and the others from the back were starting to move up to back them up.
Maz was a little worried, because Izzy’s parents should be in the city by now, and was wondering if they were dealing with the same thing. He didn’t know what to do.
“Why are you so slow at answering? That's it, check the van and see what cash you have on board!” The man ordered, and the men started to move.
“Hey, you touch that van and you're dead!” Shanesea shouted.
“Yeah, what do you think you're doing, do you want to mess with our family!” One of the younger men shouted.
“Your family!” The baseball bat man laughed back. “A bunch of cooks, what are you going to do, stink our city out?”
The man with the baseball bat moved past Maz to join the others to search the van, when doing this Maz couldn’t help himself as he grabbed the man on the shoulder to stop him.
Once again though, he shrugged his shoulders to move Maz off and kicked him straight in the stomach.
‘Crap… do I get involved?’ Izzy thought. ‘Although Maz looks scary, and works out a lot, he’s a friendly giant. He’s never been in a fight in his life.’
Lifting the baseball bat up in the air, the man was too filled with andereline and swung it down. Izzy was too late to act and wouldn’t get there in time.
Looking in front of him though, Maz soon saw a figure standing in the way, and the bat held in his hand.
From one side of the street, over to the other Gary had gotten there at great speed and there was a slight mark on the ground from where he was.
“I didn’t want to get involved.” Gary sighed.
*****
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