"Folks with plenty of plenty, they got a lock on the door
Afraid somebody's gonna rob them while they're out making more"
-I Got Plenty of Nothing, Frank Sinatra
"If I'm not into nothin' I don't feel right
So I grab the 9 and the clip and go and murder motherfuckers at night"
-Always Into Somethin', N.W.A.
The jukebox endlessly spun Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, that night in the HMS Bounty. Em entered first, chatting up William the bartender and ordering an Amaretto sour before slipping him a wad of bills. A thousand California Dollars got her access to the back booth, the one with the waterworks that hid conversations within from prying eyes and ears. It took Brian awhile to figure out who he was there to meet, but eventually he took a seat at Em's table. Reiji took a seat at the bar, sipping at a guinness before moving to a table with his plate of bangers & mash.
Officer Murphy'd just finished a burger and was wandering Wilshire, following up a lead when he noticed them... three masked men, carrying weapons, headed into the bounty. A flash and an explosion inside the bar, and he was moving towards them, eyeing the oveweight, bald black driver keeping the Mitsubishi Alante running just out front. He approached a nearby car, and after faking losing his keys, crossed the street to near the sedan's driver's side window. In a flash, his gun was aimed at the driver's face, and although the driver managed to hit the horn, his arms wound up handcuffed to the steering wheel, preventing from reaching the shotgun that lay in the passenger seat.
Inside, it was chaos as the flashbang exploded. As their eyes readjusted and their ears stopped ringing, it became apparant to the patrons that a robbery was under way. The assailants, members of the Rollin' 20s street gang, relieved those present of their valuables, taking particular interest in Reiji. One of the patrons emerged from the bathroom, apparantly an accomplice. It was just after removing Reiji's guns that one of the robbers opened the door, putting himself directly in the path of Emil Murphy's recently aquired shotgun. Fire erupted from the shotgun's barrel a moment later, the ganger decapitated after failing to understand that standard operating procedure in such situations is to drop your weapon.
It seemed like the only chance Reiji might have, and so prone and unarmed, he spun on his assailant, grabbing the Kalashniov rifle and quickly reversing it, a single 5.56mm round dispatching the man. Meanwhile, a firefight ensued between the shortest of the gang members, who'd just murdered the bartender and waitress, and Emil. The ganger grazed Emil's face with a 9mm round, dodging both of the officer's shotgun blasts. A shot from the Kalashnikov finally silenced him.
Detective Spooner arrived on scene just as Emil, using a body as a shield, chased the accomplice into the bathroom. The ambush opportunity was foiled when the accomplice's gun jammed, forcing him to retreat into a stall. After ejecting the struck cartridge, he fired a hail of bullets into the ganger's dead body, opening himself up to a debilitating leg shot from the officer. Now helpless, he could only watch as Murphy greeted his fellow member of the LAPD.
It soon became apparant that Det. Spooner had no wish to spend any longer that necessary investigating the scene, going so far as to snap the neck of the wounded man in the bathroom. A routine gang rivalry, he proclaimed, nothing more, and those present were allowed, perhaps encouraged, to leave the scene.
Em, Brian, and Reiji soon found themselves at Doc Chen's Noodle House, just up the street from the Bounty, comparing notes. It seemed that all three had been looking for a man named Senjou, who'd not shown up as he was supposed to. After some research they found Emil's phone number and called him, inviting him to join them. He did so, after visting his mother to get his face patched up, and as the conversation drifted into the night it was soon apparant that more was happening than was readily apparant. It seemed the Rollin' 20s were looking for Senjou as well, and with his disappearance more information became necessary.
The Zenith Apartments, just south of Slauson on Figueroa (and in the heart of the DMZ), were playing host to a Rollin 20s party that night. Emil arrived to find Big Slick, a ranking G, playing Texas hold 'em with his homies under the careful eyes of armed sentries. Although he lost $500 to Big Slick's full houses, he learned that the O.G. had in fact ordered the robbery, and was willing to share what he knew, but first he had a favor to ask. The Rollin' 20s wanted to bury their dead, and the bodies were presumably in police custody. He'd been called by the driver not long after the others left the bounty, begging for help because "they" were going to kill him. Unfortunately, several calls later, Emil determined that the bodies had not, in fact, shown up at the Coroner's office.
Meanwhile, Brian purchased a recently developed exploit for the LAPD's firewall and broke into their system. Sleuthing a few protected systems, he searched the personnel records, finding the address, telephone number, and record of Detective Spooner. Spooner was the ranking officer, the last on the scene, and surely would know what became of the bodies. It also seemed more and more likely that Spooner had some involvement in the underhanded dealings of the night.
Regrouping over chicken and waffles, Em, Brian, Emil, and Reiji shared what they'd come to learn. A decision was reached, two thugs would be sent to Detective Spooner's residence to kidnap him and bring him to a newly acquired storage unit in Fontana. The plan seemed sound, allowing them to interrogate Spooner at their leisure, but fell apart when an hour later Brian received a call; the thugs had been caught trying to illegally enter Spooner's building by security.