[POI] ⭐ Madeline's [Open]

Dallas ignored Sheck's little jokes about Marty. The Don's little knife-man thought he was a funny guy. If Dallas wanted to, he could break Sheck into five pieces before he knew what was happening. 

"Sure," Dallas said, drinking down the last of his whiskey. He raised the empty glass in salute before standing and lighting a fresh cigarette. "I questioned him, and I can spot a lie a mile away -- I'm not slippin, Cactus Jack . But maybe he left something on his computer."  He bowed his head to the Don of the Slums.

Dallas gave Sheck a flat, cold glance while turning to leave. "See ya there, Fulton," He said, blowing out a cloud of smoke through his nostrils.  Sliding past Sheck, Dallas would walk straight out of Madeline's.

He was now convinced that the Don had nothing to do with it. If the Don had done it, he wouldn't have let Dallas walk out alive.

---

Back at Marty's, Dallas was the opposite of cool and collected. If Sheck and Tolliver came with, they'd see quite the scene. He turned the desk into a pile of shattered splinters with the blurring wails of his electro-cane. He kicked open file cabinets, tore open couch cushions. The place looked like a tornado, and Dallas was in a fuming rage.

"Not one clue, not one damn clue!"

He cloned the computer, but so far his sniffer bot had turned up nothing. And why should it? Marty was meticulous and loyal, he wouldn't have blinked twice at a blind-buy from the Don's own codes. That left other suspects... and as much as Dallas might like giving Sheck a good thrashing, he wasn't convinced either of the Don's lackeys had the brains or the merits to try to bump him.

He was back at square one.  Closing his eyes, he went over the bare facts. Someone wanted him dead. If it wasn't the Don... it couldn't be anyone else in the Slums. That left topsiders. That left Shin-Ra. The Don had been mum on his thoughts in that regard.

%#@$ing Shin-Ra. 

Maybe it was time to pay his old colleagues a visit...

Even in cities like Midgar, where the divide between the haves and have-nots is pronounced to almost impossible extremes, there are still places where the classes will mingle; certain lines they must travel along. The most profitable of these, of course, is vice – red light districts and black markets and back alley deals. And there are always certain fixtures in these places – some are obvious, like the loud street vendors, show hawkers, and tourist traps. Others less so, despite their universality. Rainer is one of them. In the seedier parts of every city there are always men like him in bars like Madeline's.

He has a disarming, easygoing smile (you'd never guess a compact submachine gun lurked under that jacket), a glint of mischief in his eye, and a pretty nice suit for some of the shithole slum dives he can be found in some other nights. People of almost every class and profession have casually, amicably called him ‘Ray’ – the homeless, the affluent executives flush with recent dividends, tired salarymen, artists, teamsters, the rock and roller mercenaries with a foot in their graves, most criminals, and the hopeful revolutionaries and the enforcers they fight. The keenest observers among them would think that he was a decent sort of bloke, but for the right price he just might sell you his mother.

Rainer attracts such diverse clientele by virtue of being the fellow the bartender motions to when you discretely ask for someone who can provide certain services or knowledge. If you move to a more private place, then for a fee he can give information like reactor security patrol routes, manpower, and timetables, or just what Public Security has recently confiscated that could vanish from the manifest, or how certain goods – say, a crate of plastic explosives – have gone missing. Services like providing just such a crate, or smuggling a person or thing into a restricted area, or most any number of activities. He is efficient, fast, and low-profile – but perhaps most importantly, he won’t ask why you want it done, because under almost no circumstances will he give a good goddamn about your motivation. The only important thing to him is making sure that when it's done there are absolutely no tracks connecting him to whatever harebrained scheme you’ve concocted.

He liked the décor, but Madeline’s was a small bar, and one he visited irregularly. This combined with its heavy Manji presence (he got in without any trouble, but it was hard to say whether they would provide an obstacle - and whether it would just be competition or something greater) was, perhaps, not so good for business. It was still early, though, and the night could always – and often did – surprise. Ray took in his surroundings as he took a swallow of vodka.

Lots of mercenaries, a common sight, and a lot of this lot had the boisterous energy of rookies. The city slums were a magnet for them, and by Rainer’s figuring many of these guys would not be long in this field of work. If the monsters they hunted or the coliseum didn’t eat them alive, then the city itself certainly would. Maybe if the Manji fellows really didn’t want him around (and were particularly sadistic) they’d nudge these new guys in his direction.

There was a standout. Ray noted Sergeant Oswald . His posture and the way he carried himself had none of the piss and vinegar you found in the new mercs and the Wall Market thugs. Probably Public Security or he’d used to be. Perhaps they had been on an operation or two together. If so, Ray didn’t remember. After so long in Public Security, most of his colleagues blended together and he wouldn’t recognize them outside of work or uniform. It was clock-in, get the job done, don’t die, clock-out for Ray. No, not a common bar for grunts. But Rainer wasn’t a typical grunt – perhaps this man wasn’t either. Maybe this was his first customer. In any event, if there were to be no clients here, he could still get a few drinks and there were plenty of other places to go, so no harm done.