Dirty laundry

Who: Benny
Where: Chinatown
When: Very late

For all intents and purposes, it was a laundromat. And most of the day? It actually was one; a huge and sprawling launderer's facility that oversaw countless jobs pressing linens, cleaning bedsheets for the hotels in town, freshening server's uniforms, and more. It could have been a lucrative business in and of itself for the owner, but when the owner was an affiliate of the Jade Lotus? Legitimate business was never enough. Benny had known that would be the case, and after long weeks of waiting, he finally had his proof.

He'd only needed to kill one informant in front of another to get the information, and whether he liked it or not? The deviousness of his opponents was an impressive thing. He'd watched the laundry runs for the past two nights just to see if what he'd been told through mouthfuls of blood was true; twice a week the cocaine came in after dark, and twice a week, a few hours later? Fresh parcels of untagged laundry got loaded into trucks and driven off into the city. If what the snitch told him was true, they were 'starching' the sheets with the drugs and sending off innocuous cargo that could be seperated from the sheets later. It was clever, enough so that Benny's former associates would've lauded these men despite their mutual animosity.

Benny, however, had no intention of congratulating his prey. He had a message to send. Beyond learning the times for the laundry runs, he'd been watching the workers, studying their shift changes and what they wore. He had to blend as seamlessly as he could, to be in the heart of this beast before he tore it out and stomped on it. Lingering across the street in the shadows, Benny took one last moment to check the plain white shirt and ratty pants he wore before turning his focus back to the alley itself, and the man within it.

Standing under a solitary bulb affixed above the laundromat's back door, the guy was puffing a cigarette and scratching beneath the strap of the surgical mask that hung loose around his neck. Aside from the tattoo on one forearm, he could've been any of the countless citizens of Chinatown. So can I, Benny thought with a grim expression, starting from his shadow and patting the .45 he'd tucked behind his shirt. He moved at a steady pace towards the alley, not daring to even breathe as he waited to be spotted and hoped he wouldn't be. "We're closed!" the Lotus worker called sharply as he spotted Benny, and Benny only answered with a few sparse words of Vietnamese and a confused look. He was playing the part of fresh meat, a new arrival straight off the boat without a word of English at his command.

"I said we're clo--" the guy had started to say again, this time in Vietnamese, but his words were cut short as Benny stepped in close enough to snap a palmheel up squarely under the man's nose with a sick crunch. He was ready to catch the body as bone fragments punctured up into the brain, holding the dying man upright as his feet kicked senselessly at the ground for a moment. Working fast to tug the surgical mask off without getting blood on it, Benny lowered the now-dead body to the ground carefully and dragged it clear of the alley's light.

He tugged the mask on, fixing it over his nose and mouth and praying for a moment that the bare disguise would be enough. How much attention would he actually be paid? Given how he saw these people work, Benny didn't expect much; they would only get paid if they met their quota, and that meant they would all be working feverishly. To death, he mused, slipping inside the door and wincing at the roar of machinery all around him. Steam assailed his skin, raising a sheen of sweat almost instantly as the smell of detergent pushed through the mask harshly. He could hear coveyers clattering as racks of cloth came sliding on rollers, tumblers bellowing and clanking with their loads inside, the hiss of steam presses, and beneath it all? A constant chatter of voices. Korean, Cantonese, Vietnamese, he even thought there were snippets of Laoshan in there. Benny didn't speak them all, of course, but he'd done enough jobs across Asia to recognize it's myriad tongues. And they were all here, in this city, as slaves. Willing slaves, though, which meant they were not to be spared.

Moving deeper into the nest of industry, Benny tried to look like he knew where he was going, but in truth? He was lost. There were rows of hanging rollers rattling as heavy clamps bore sheets down the length of them, giving glimpses of truly massive dryers beyond them, and a row of people worked as the sheets came into view, tugging the sheets down with long pole'hooks and piling them in the same heavy, unmarked bags he'd spotted during surveillance. Six of them, Benny noted with a frown, watching as four filled a pair of bags with sheets and the other two hooked them shut with hand-hooks, hefting them up onto dollies to wheel out of sight.

Benny breezed past them with an air of confidence, eyes on the ceiling track as he followed it back to the source, feeling sweat drip down his neck as he moved. He wound around the track slowly, finding himself staring at a sea of tumbler dryers mounted at one wall with a series of steam-press benches running parallel, and another three men busily working both sets of equipment. Nine... One moved from dryer to dryer, pulling steaming and still-damp sheets from erach unit, piling them high in a rolling cart and bringing the whole mess to the presses, to the proof.

He felt his jaw tighten as Benny watched the two men at the presses spread sheets taut across each table, then shake heavy white powder from handscoops across each one. As they saturated each sheet in turn, the presses were closed with gouts of steam issuing forth. Clever poisoners. Benny started towards them intently, making it within ten feet before one of the men looked up from his press, his eyes narrowing sharply over the edge of his mask. "Back to work!" he snapped at Benny in Cantonese, stabbing his free hand back to the conveyors where the other men loaded bag after bag, "Back to work or you will be punished!"

"I've already been punished," Benny muttered to himself in response, reaching back for his gun, "Your turn." He was fluid as flowing water as he drew the gun, pulling the slide even as he raised and fired, a single report sounding over the machines in the same instant that the man's cheek imploded and dark red erupted from the back of his head. The other two men at the presses and dryers froze for a heartbeat, both staring at Benny in shock just long enough for his arm to drift, his finger to squeeze the trigger twice, and the second man to topple backwards with two bright spots of red staining his shirt. That was all the third man needed to see as he suddenly broke into a run, ducking low in time to move beneath another two shots from Benny as they cracked off the metal of the dryers behind him.

Benny moved quick to follow, cursing beneath his mask as the man he chased hopped a low hurdle over some hunk of equipment, disappearing behind the line of sheets rolling along the conveyors. He pushed hard, finding extra strength in his legs as he gave chase and watched between each sheet for a glimpse of his target, only looking away in time to realize that he was charging back into the midst of the first six men. They stood almost entirely huddled up, five in one knot, one standing back with a dropped bag of sheets at his feet. Today? he thought with a grim smile as he caught the barest bit of movement behind the sheets, Today is a good die for someone else to die.

Steps were counted as Benny closed on the five, as he watched two raise their hooking poles far too slowly for their own good, and Benny leapt. Two quick steps from soft-toed shoes before his feet left the ground and he arced in towards them, brandishing the gun off towards the sheets. "Nine Dragons sends you to hell!" he roared as he collided, slamming a foot out into one man's throat and pushing off of the kick to drive a knee back into the other. Benny was firing before he touched the ground, sending the man he'd kneed back past the sheets and casting them wide to expose the runner. His first shot went wide, his second dipped low to burst the man's ankle mid-step, and his last? It had been aimed at his hip, a guiding shot, but when the man fell and the bullet caught him through the side of his neck? Benny smiled as he touched down.

His gun darted up and in, the last shell racking into the chamber and snapping off to explode up under a man's chin with a splash of gore. But if he'd been hoping for that moment of violence to shock the other five? He was in for disappointment. The one he'd kicked in the throat was down, gagging and choking harshly as he clutched his neck, but the other three moved as one on Benny. He stepped back as a hooking pole cut the air in a downward path, bouncing off the pavement under foot sharply and dragging back to make room for the other attacker as he moved in with a rush of fists.

Benny was quick to meet him, arms twisting and corkscrewing as he swayed and juked, catching each strike with a forearm or elbow before it could even get close, and finally smashing the butt of his empty gun down on his attacker's wrist. The man howled in pain as he hopped back to make room for his fellows, this time letting both the pole and the hand hooks lash out at Benny from both sides in a flurry of strikes. He twisted sharply past a hook, ducking low under a swing of the pole and putting a spin into his heel as he dropped the spent clip from his pistol. One smooth stream of motion saw him grab his spare from his waistband, hammering it up into the gun as he rose, racking the first shell, and putting it through the hooking pole wielder's temple.

Hissing in pain as one of the hand claws raked at his bicep, Benny felt his gun fall from suddenly tingling fingers and moved quick, falling back on one heel and leaning sharply as the other claw raked the air where his face had been. Benny lurched upright, hands curling tight as he exploded into motion and began slinging strikes at the armed man, pushing his foe's arms wide every time they came around with a hook. He twisted to the side reflexively, raising a leg to catch a kick from the other man harmlessly against his shin before he drilled two rapid strikes into the man's neck. Turning back just as fast as he'd moved away, Benny snapped an open hand at a descending hook, snaring the wrist entirely and drawing it past him to dig between the ribs of the man he'd just struck.

The second hook was an afterthought, a desperate move from a man who had to know he was about to die. Benny caught it as it swept down, wrenching it from the holder's grip and lashing it up and over to plunge down on the inside of his collarbone. He actually flinched there, though not from the horror he'd inflicted. More from the scream he drew from the other man as blood spurted up from the wound and he fell. Crouching down to grab his fallen pistol, Benny aimed a smirk at his feet as he heard a scuffle of footsteps to one side, those of the man he'd landed a knee on during his initial rush. His head tilted just enough to spy feet behind a hanging sheet as they moved towards him and the ring of bodies he stood in, raising his pistol haphazardly to squeeze off three shots through the sheet and laughing harshly as splashes of red leapt to the hanging cloth.

He was standing solidly again, tugging down the mask to breathe a deep lungful of soap-scented air as Benny put a hand over the gouge in his arm and walked away from the bodies. Moving towards what had to be the front of the place, the divide between the public business and the real money, Benny let his arm go long enough to push sweaty hair back with a hand, heedless of the red streak he smeared across his forehead. He had to count his blessings for the conditions these people worked in; their general lack of English necessitated labels for the equipment and products they used, and that meant Benny could read them as well.

Grabbing a jug of something he thought was a solvent but knew was flammable, Benny hefted it back to the discarded bag of sheets. He still didn't know if there was anyone in the front of the store, and if there was, had they heard the gunfire over the machinery? He had to assume the clock was working against him. Laying the sheets out across as much of the floor as he could, Benny poured the entire jug of chemicals across them and took one more pass around the workspace, turning on every piece of machinery he could before he moved back to the door. Out came the box of matches he'd gotten at the Sunny Shores, and as Benny scratched one to life and watched it flare, his eyes flared with the diminutive fire. "This is how it starts," he murmured in his native tongue, "This is how it ends."

He tossed the match, watching flames spring to life across the floor and catch on the dead men's clothing before he walked out the same door he'd come in. Benny sprinted from the alley as it grew brighter than the single lightbulb could accomodate, firelight spilling out the door behind him. The streets were quiet, the windows dark... he was clear. Still, he didn't stop jogging at a steady pace until he was blocks away, and that was when Benny hit a figurative wall. 'Blocks away' had taken him outside of Chinatown, the late hour left him bereft of any helpful cab lights, and the street signs? No way did he have a clue what they said.

Cursing himself for not planning an exit strategy for this endeavor, Benny did the only thing he could do. He kept walking. In time, he might find a cab, or maybe recognize his surroundings enough to get back to the Shores. Whichever one he managed, one thing was clear. He was going to need to learn to read this foreign tongue if he wanted to survive this city of barbarians. Tonight, vengeance. Tomorrow? A book store.