Light Feet Meeting Heavy Boots

Valerie Heston was not a woman to be trifled with. She was a tall, large woman with short white hair, and piercing green eyes hidden behind her thick, black sunglasses. She was one of the older individuals to be running a gang in East Diamond, but she was by no means slowing down any time soon. She leaned back casually in a lawn chair in the front yard of an abandoned house she had appropriated, a large shotgun in her lap. The street was empty, so she'd have a clear view of anyone coming or going from the street. She sipped casually from a drink of rum and tapped her cigarette with her finger, dropping off some of the excess ash. She turned her gaze to a man in front of her; his back was to her, and he was digging a hole. She couldn't remember his name, nor did she give a shit. He was one of Oz's boys, and he had been caught on her territory, so he was dead. His body was just too stupid to realize it.
He was filthy, covered in the dirt that he was digging up. He wasn't digging at nearly a fast enough pace; the hole was only about half a foot deep right now, and she wanted it to be at least three feet, preferably more. She put down her drink, picked up the shotgun, and fired it straight into the air to encourage him to pick up the pace. "I don't see you sweatin' nearly as much as you should be, boy." She shouted at him, her voice deep and raspy from years of smoking tobacco.
Valerie, or as her friends from Oz called her, "The Wicked Witch of the East" always enjoyed dramatic displays. They got people's attention, and made them more... Cooperative. She always believed in that. And today she had to put on a bit of a show; she was hiring a new merc, and she wanted to make sure he knew who precisely he was dealing with. She had sent him a location for them to meet, and so now she sat there waiting, watching the intruder dig a hole for her amusement as she did.

Sai looked down at the burner phone he had purchased for this job. When he applied he didn't want anything connected to anything with his name on it. Thankfully, the client seemed interested in a meeting, and this would be his first real job for the underworld. He had done small tasks here and there, but something felt special about this.

Stepping forward, he walked down the neighborhood until he came to the written address. This was...not what he was expecting at all. Sai watched the man digging the hole, seeing how afraid he really was. Looking over to the woman, he just sized her for a moment. "The Wicked Witch? Or just a representative?" Sai asked as he stood before her. He came unarmed, not wanting any trigger happy muscle to think he was a threat to their boss. "I'm here for the job"

Valerie looked over her sunglasses at the oddly dressed man and gave him a coy smile. "Yup, that'd be me. But you don't need to refer to me by a title given to me by my enemies." She tossed her cigarette to the side and stood up from her lawn chair. "Call me Ms. Heston if you're professional, Valerie if you're spicy." She slung the shotgun over her left shoulder, and stuck out her meaty right hand to shake, a wide grin on her face with surprisingly white teeth considering her smoking habit. "I take it you're the new talent running about Mocca City I asked to meet me here? Sai, right?"

"Ma Heston it is then" Sai said as he shook the surprisingly strong hand of Valerie. She seemed polite, even while holding a shotgun, it was a very..unsettling combo of feeling that she was giving off. After finishing the shake, Sai nodded his head.

"Yes ma'am, new to the gamebut eager and willing to get started"

She pursed her lips slightly as he called her "Ms. Heston", but her grin returned quickly. "Eager, that's a word I like to hear!" She looked over to the man digging a few feet from them, who had stopped for a moment to wipe his brow. "Something that SOME people should pick up, moron! Did I say you could stop?" She screamed at him, causing him to jump and quickly return to work. She turned back to Sai and grinned again. "Sorry about that. Where was I? Ah, yes. Eager. I like it. So, right now, I like you. And, depending on what you do for me, I might like you a whole helluva lot more." She reached into her shirt and pulled out a small personal notebook, leafing through it. "Word is if I throw money at you, you make problems go away. Have I got that right?"

Sai just glanced to the prisoner as Balerie yelled at him to keep the work up. Sai was pretty certain the guy was digging his own grave. He must been terrified of this woman to be willing to do that. Fear was something to be respected in the underworld. They weren't called Crime Lords for nothing.

"That's correct. However, I am new to the game. Instead of money, I would also trade my services in return for weapons and ammunition. Whichever you prefer honestly"

She looked up from her notebook and smirked. "'s that so? Good. I like that." She tore a page out of the book and folded up with one hand while the other tucked the notebook back into her shirt. "Alright, then. I'll tell you what; I'm a generous woman to my friends, so how's about this: I've got two jobs that I want done. If you do the bare minimum, I give you a gun for each job you do. If you do it well, I give you some magazines for them. You make me laugh when I hear about it, I'll let you handpick what you want from my personal arsenal, and throw in a wad of cash for your troubles. Sound good?" She grinned. "See, I like spectacles. Heard of that dealer, Derrick Colmek? Guy who got stripped naked, tarred and feathered, then sent screaming through Jadetown?" She laughed and jabbed a fat thumb at herself. "The work of yours truly. I like a good show. You put one on, and I like you. Capiche?"

Two jobs? This woman seemed a bit more trusting than Sai was expecting. He still wasn't completely convinced that she was the real buyer. She seemed extremely casual, but perhaps that was part of the act. For all Sai knew, there might be eight guns trained on him this very moment.

"You got a deal" Sai said with a small smirk. "Should we discuss the work here? Or would you rather text me the details?"

"I don't see why we can't discuss things here." She shrugged. "I've got to keep an eye on this moron anyways." She held the piece of paper she folded out to him. "First problem I have is the obvious; I recently split up with Oz, in dramatic fashion, of course. This job is simple: Throw a wrench in their plans. How? I don't care. I believe in giving people a degree of freedom. That's the point of Mocca City, anyways. Just get the job done however you see fit. This is a list of locations of some of their drug labs. Make it an entertaining tale and we'll get along swimmingly."
After Sai took the paper, she tucked a hand into her pocket. "Second job is a bit harder, so obviously I'll offer better compensation for it. I'm sure in your short time in this part of town, you've heard about the Tang family and their leader Shoushan. Well, he doesn't like me. Thinks a woman can't strike out on her own. So I want to make him a very unhappy man. That job? Easy. Give him a bad day. How? No clue. Spring some of his would-be slaves. Set fire to one of his bases of operation. Take a shit in his omelette. Just make it so he's very unhappy at the end of the day, and you'll make me very happy. Sound like easy enough jobs?"

Hmmm those were two jobs that Sai hadn't really been expecting. He figured he'd have more restrictions. Like a murder that was made to look like a suicide, or something else. Regardless, this was a chance for Sai to show someone in power what he was made of. He'd see these jobs through, or he'd make one hell of a last stand.

"Very well. It's going to take some time for me to see this through, I'll need to study their locations and habits. Once I've done that I'll make sure to ruin their days in some creative ways. You want them to know you're behind this, or should I keep it anonymous?"

Valerie laughed and clapped Sai's shoulder with one of her hands. "Hon, I'm the Wicked Witch of the East. Go out of your way to let them know the Witch sent ya. As I said, I like spectacles. Take this moron for example." She turned around and walked over to the man who had finally made the hole deep enough for her purposes. In a single swift motion, she whipped the shotgun off her shoulder and blasted the man's left leg off at the knee. He fell into the hole, screaming and clutching at the stump. She grinned, tossed the shotgun to the side, and picked up the shovel. A resounding thwack was audible even from the ten feet away Sai was as Valerie clocked him in the head with the shovel, knocking him completely flat in the hole. "See, his cell phone is still on him, and the higher ups at Oz use those to keep track of their underlings like him. So they're gonna be turning up here to check on him when he doesn't come home." As she continued speaking, she began shoveling dirt back on top of the still moaning man. "If I buried him with a bullet in his head, that'd be business as usual in Mocca City. But that's not what Mocca City is about, is it, Sai? Mocca City is an eternal earthquake of chaos. Only those who can stay on their feet are worth staying. Agreed?"

Sai watched as Valerie blasted the mans leg off only to then continue to bury him. Sai was pretty sure he was dead by now, if not he likely wished he was dead. Still though, this woman understood the great chain of how to cause harm and destruction amongst her enemies. She was unpredictable and resourceful, even using new blood so Sai wouldn't be able to be linked to her.

Sai didn't know if she had earned loyalty yet, but she had a fan now. "Agreed, and believe me I plan to stay standing for a long time. I'll have to go see what I can do about those drug labs...I'll stay in touch, contact you when it's done"

Valerie turned and grinned at him, dirt covering her thick combat boots as she finished burying the man, the ground shifting slightly from his futile struggles. "Take your time with these, sweetheart. I'm in no rush, so be sure to make it a good show." She laughed. "I'll be seeing you around, kid."