Arthur had never worked directly with a criminal organization before, at least not in this capacity. So he wasn’t sure really what to expect out of them. It being different, at least, was a given. Much different than his work with the precinct, or with the Assistant. Most obviously different was that everything happened at night. Cover of darkness and all that, Arthur supposed. It was the same with the Assistant, but he was working with Bartolome’s men much more frequently, and it was always night. Off handedly, Arthur had asked one of Bartolome’s men, whom he referred to as his ‘Soldados’, why they only worked at night. The man had just laughed.
Besides that, the Soldados were surprisingly professional. Not that the cops and detectives Arthur worked with weren’t, by any means. But he figured these guys would be lax, casual, and generally unreliable. Contrarily, they were all usually fairly well dressed, arrived to meetings on time, and usually reserved any kind of joking or goofing off for whenever they weren’t working. Another similarity, was that most of them were trained to kill. Not in self defense or to protect other people. But how to locate, hunt, and take somebody down quietly. They all knew how to use firearms, many knew how to use knives, and all of them seemed like they had some kind of prior experience in law enforcement, military, or something else related. It made sense why Bartolome called them his Soldados. Soldiers. They were practically a private army. Which, Arthur figured, meant he was paying them well.
And he was paying Arthur well, too. It wasn’t like the Assistant and her employer. He had actually negotiated his position working for Bartolome, to some degree, and was legally working as a contractor for a private firm. CargoLink. At least, as far as Arthur could tell, it was legal. If he’d made up a warrant and started poking here and there he was sure he’d find some problems, and this import/export company likely wasn’t doing just import/export. But Arthur wasn’t interested in trying to bust them. For more reasons than one, but specifically because Arthur was making significantly more money here than he was with the department. All it cost him was getting a few less hours of sleep every day, which usually resulted into showing up at the precinct late, leaving early, and generally slacking on his duties as a cop.
Arthur knew it, Dot knew it, and the station Chief knew it, but he’d been there so long that he was allowed to get away with it. For now, at least.
And yet, aside from the part where he was basically a full blown criminal at this point, where his side job was actually money laundering, and where he was on the fast path to getting fired as a cop, something he’d dreamed of doing since he was a teenager; Arthur actually felt good. The money was nice, but for the first time in a long time Arthur felt like he was actually appreciated by the people he worked for. Despite being on a very different level both operationally and trust wise than the Soldados, there was often camaraderie between them that he was welcome to participate in. It felt like he was part of a team that actually cared about each other after the clock hit five.
On top of that he didn’t have to bust his ass every day while still worrying about rent. And, there was some level of justification Arthur was able to tell himself every night. None of the work he was asked to do forced him to get directly involved in whatever schemes CargoLink was getting up to. He was just an information gatherer. Mostly that involved following people, taking pictures of them, figuring out their schedules, delivering manifests, documents, and other things that were mostly in-line with what he did as a cop. So, Arthur told himself he wasn’t really getting his hands dirty whenever his little moral compass decided to wake up every now and again. It was just detective work. He was just a PI, albeit for some very bad people.
This was true for a long time, until one night about two months into working for CargoLink. The original task had been find and follow a person that the Soldados had been having difficulty getting eyes on. For Arthur that wasn’t much of a problem, though it became apparent why this person was hard to get a track of. As far as Arthur could tell he must’ve been involved in some shady business too. After had been following him for a week, and the man also only came out at night, and usually went from place to place as quickly as possible before disappearing into a huge apartment complex. This was his usual routine, sometimes making the same stop every other day. Arthur took pictures, gathered info, and sent it all back to the Soldados. He was expecting to be given a new assignment afterwards, but it never came. So, Arthur kept following, and on the eighth day of following the man Arthur saw something he regretted having seen. One night, as the man left his apartment building, three Soldados appeared from nowhere and chased the man into an alleyway before hacking him to death with machetes.
Arthur, unfortunately had a full view of the occurrence. His first instinct was to call the cops, but realized how stupid that would be. His second was to take photos like he’d been doing, but realized how stupid that would be too. So instead, he just sat and watched as this man was mutilated just twenty feet away from where other pedestrians were walking. The Soldados left as quickly as they came, and the next night Arthur was given a new assignment like nothing had happened.
It had been a hard thing to watch, to say the least. On the drive back to the CargoLink building Arthur was running through all the things he was planning on saying to them in his head. He wouldn’t do this again, this was barbaric, he didn’t know he was helping them murder people. All weak, flimsy excuses that weren’t all exactly true, but he had to voice them nevertheless. And he did. But not to Bartolome, because he wasn’t even in Texas anymore, and apparently rarely was. Arthur was only ever allowed to speak to him if it was something urgent or had to do with their deal. Instead, he had to voice his concerns to a man named Santiago Flores. Santiago had been at the church when Bartolome recruited Arthur. Short, stocky, bald, with numerous tattoos all over his neck and face. Dark skinned, spoke Mexican slang interspersed with his English. His men all called him Saint, which Arthur quickly realized was an irony. Saint explained to Arthur that this was an irregular occurrence, and that it was a decision that had to be made on the spot, and that Arthur wasn’t supposed to be there. But he never claimed it wouldn’t happen again.
On that night, it clicked that Bartolome must have had some connection with cartels in the south, because Saint and many of the other Soldados seemed to be direct hires from the cartel. That made Arthur scared. They were cordial and friendly to him directly, but after watching them hack that man to death it was obvious that they were wolves in sheep's clothing. They were brazen killers, willing to murder in the middle of the street or gun down people in front of apartment blocks. They’d probably done much worse. And yet, despite it all, Arthur got along well with all of them, including his new boss. He figured as long as he was on their side he had nothing to worry about. Saint himself was curt and to the point, paid Arthur when he was supposed to, and treated him with respect. Saint was also the one in charge of the mission to find the Assistant, which Arthur was a part of.
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After that night at his apartment, she had gotten away without a trace. Saint and Arthur’s priority was finding and getting rid of her, which so far had been fruitless. She was good at hiding, which meant that she probably was taking advantage of her former employers resources and connections. The most Arthur had found out about her was her first name, Persephone. Queen of the Underworld. And that information had come by pure coincidence. Benny, the ugly information broker who worked underneath the forensics lab, had been the one to divulge that to Arthur when asked. According to him, he “worked for nobody”, and he was willing to share information about Persephone for a steep price, one that Saint paid without a second thought.
She had shown up to collect a deposit box key from Benny that had been stashed with him. But by the time Arthur got to the actual deposit, everything inside had been withdrawn. And the records about the box were sealed. Arthur was unable to get any kind of official warrant to search, so Saint had suggested another plan. The plan, as it turned out, was to steal from a bank. At this point, Arthur felt like he was being squeezed from all sides and simultaneously pulled in every different direction. Any kind of ethical concern about performing a bank heist simply never surfaced in his mind. Right now he was just trying to survive.
Plus, in comparison to the shooting and the machete night, stealing didn’t seem so bad in comparison. Not to mention the fact that Arthur still hadn’t gotten answers about what he’d witness the Assistant do that night. Every time he asked, Saint promised he would explain. Eventually.
The night of the heist didn’t seem to be the night that he would get an explanation. They were parked across the street away from any street lamps, sitting in shadows. This bank was a modern building made with brick foundation with large, glass windows, and it’s named plastered across the front in bold modern type font. Without a closer look, it was easy to imagine that this place was wired to the gills with security, but Saint wasn’t concerned about that. Arthur’s only job was to sit here and keep watch, and then verify the records once Saint had retrieved them. Arthur wasn’t a financial advisor, but he’d had enough experience with financial related crimes to give him a good enough intuition to look for obvious signs of fake paper trails. So for right now, Arthur was just a pair of eyes, while Saint was getting ready to do all the field work. He didn’t seem prepared, wearing his usual button down, slacks, and nice shoes. Not really even dressed like one would think a robber would dress like. Arthur was waiting for him to pull out lock picks, or some kind of electronic hacking device, or a long rope to scale the side of the building.
Instead, shortly after they park, Saint got out of the car, said “Be right back,” and shut the door. He briefly surveyed their surroundings, and crossed the street without a second thought. A moment later he disappeared behind the building. Arthur was craning his neck around the car to make sure nobody had spotted Saint when his phone buzzed. It was a text from Dot.
‘Wassap?!’
She must be at a bar. Arthur ignored it, but his phone buzzed again. ‘Seriousl dude. Fucks up with yo lately?’
She must have been at this bar for a while considering how many typos she was texting. Arthur half wanted to respond and let her know everything was fine, and half wanted to tell her to fuck off, because he was in the middle of a bank heist. So he ignored it. As he looked up from his phone, Arthur spotted a security guard outside. He texted Saint quickly to warn him, but there was no response. The guard was meandering near the front, but started making his rounds in the direction Saint had gone. Arthur waited a few minutes, but no response. Nothing inside the building seemed to change either. He waited a few more minutes. No text, and he hadn’t seen the guard make his patrol again.
Arthur was getting worried, so opened the door and stepped out. Trying to act calm, he made his way across the street. He checked around the building to see if there were any obvious cameras or other guards, but couldn’t see anything standing out in the darkness, so he kept going. Then, Arthur stopped. What was he even planning on doing? Arthur stood in silence as that thought passed through his mind. He looked down at his hands. Was he going to attack this guard if he saw Saint? Try to distract him? He realized he was here without a plan. What if worst came to worst, and the guard tried to arrest him? What then? He couldn’t kill the guy. Could I? Arthur thought for a brief moment. The thought disgusted him, which also made him relieved that he apparently still had some kind of humanity left in him. Then he heard a shout, that was quickly cut off, down the alley where the guard had walked. Arthur ran down the way and turned the corner, eyes going wide as what he saw, he truly wasn’t expecting.
Under a flickering building light, the guard was on the ground, struggling, weakly. Blood poured down the front of his shirt, and Saint was gripping him from behind in a headlock; with his mouth around the guards neck. Drinking his blood.
Arthur froze, and only when he said “What the fuck,” out loud, did Saint notice him. Saint stared for half a second, then went back to what he was doing like this was a completely normal situation. Arthur didn’t know what to do, so he meekly commanded Saint to stop, who ignored him. A few seconds later, Saint let the guard fall to the ground. Surprisingly he didn’t seem to be gushing any more blood out of the wound that should’ve been on his neck, and it looked like he was still breathing. Saint made his way towards Arthur, who was frozen in fear. It felt very strange to Arthur when Saint casually pressed a folder, and a hard drive into Arthur’s hands, and made his way back to the car. At this point, Arthur was less concerned about the guard who appeared to be alive, and was more concerned that Saint was walking past him wiping the remainder of blood off of his mouth acting like nothing had happened.
Arthur jogged to catch back up with him, still shell shocked by the scene. As they got to the car, Arthur hissed, “What the fuck!”
“Get in the car,” Saint ordered. Arthur felt like arguing, or protesting, or maybe just running away. But he also felt a morbid curiosity to know what the fuck just happened. So he got in the car. As he got in, Saint started the car and began to drive. “That folder’s got some statements and addresses on it. The hard drive is a transfer history. You should be able to get something from that.”
Arthur was dumbfounded at the apparent disregard of the situation, and practically shouted “Saint! What the fuck man! You just…what did you just do to that guy?!”
Saint stopped at a red light and gave Arthur a weird look. “What, man? The guard?”
“YES! What the fuck!”
Saint gave him an incredulous look, then snorted. “You serious? I thought you knew already.”
