Cop Craft – Dragnet Mirage Reloaded

「O’Neill’s club, right? I think that was in Seven Miles.」 「Right. You’re welcome.」

O’Neill was an informant that Matoba frequently spoke with. He was a self proclaimed “reverend”, who frequently dirtied his hands with stolen goods, insane porn and shady seminars. Tony and Godunov also maintained some contact with him, but very rarely approached him directly.

Their Citroen exited Police HQ and headed west, their destination being the Seven Miles borough, as they drove straight ahead through Madeira Road. It was right before dusk, so most bars were still closed. They stopped the car on a road bustling with clubs and pubs, and went inside one called the “Lady Chapel”.

A huge bodyguard was standing right in front of them.

「Entrance is only from 7pm onwards. You can wait right there and—」 「Okay, Kenny. Did you forget my face that quickly?」 「Oh. If it isn’t Boss McBee? How are you doing? The boss is at the back. Though, unfortunately, he’s in the middle of an audition right now.」 「Oh alright. We’ll wait till he finishes this song.」

Color me Badd’s “I wanna sex you up” could be heard all the way to the entrance from within the club. It was a hit song from back when Tony was a little kid. A black man dressed in a very bizarre attire was singing on stage, and he was shaking his hips in a very unpleasant manner, while singing in an overly sweet tone.

“All night, girl you make me feel good, I wanna rub you down, I wanna sex you up. Make sweet lovin' all night long. I wanna sex you up”. It was that kind of song.

「Hallellujaaaah!!」

As soon as the song stopped, the owner, Biz O’Neill, raised both his hands, and shouted up to the skies all of a sudden, while sitting and behaving arrogantly on a client’s chair. He then straightened his black robe, a golden pendant hanging from his neck. He was a bald black man, who was always wearing tiny round sunglasses.

「How wonderful! I’m sure God’s will dwells within your song! It came pouring down from the skies like the holy gospel. It reverberated through my very soul, filling it with light, energy and willpower! Perfect! It is perfect, brothers!」

Said O’Neill as he tightened his fists and started punching the air. The band members' faces all lit up suddenly, and they started happily looking at each other.

「Are—are you serious, Mr. O’Neill?! So are you going to hire us?!」 「Hm! Wait a minute, right now my heart is being touched by God himself… that’s right, the holy spirit itself is telling me this: “To be honest, I don’t really like Color Me Badd that much. I don’t mind the dirty lyrics, but I think maybe next time, okay?”」 「……」 「So that’s the situation, brothers! The exit is that way!」

After making sure the depressed band members groggily exited the club, O’Neill found himself right in front of Tony and Godunov.

「Was that supposed to be an audition? It looked more like stroking your own ego, O’Neill.」 「Ohoho. Well I’ll be! Detective McBee and Detective Godunov. Are the delightful Detective Matoba and the little girl doing alright?」

Asked O’Neill after swiftly fixing the position of his glasses on his face.

「Well… to be honest, Matoba got his beloved car completely wrecked just recently, so he’s kind of depressed… anyways, you work with porn too, right? I need you to do me a favor.」 「Porn?! That’s a rude way to call it. Listen here, Detective McBee. All I’m doing is focusing my efforts into chasing spiritual and physical experiences. It is all my way to guide people to God’s realm, it’s nothing more than a realistic way to do that. In other words, it is a dogmatic truth far larger and more complex than anything you or your fellow detectives from Vice could ever understand…」 「You can skip your pretentious speech. If you don’t, you’re going back to jail.」 「It always comes down to this with you people! But it’s fine. I’m feeling merciful today, so I will listen to your concerns.」 「Do you know anything about a porn stealing gang? Can you please run a rumour about us wanting to buy some stolen porn? We’ll go by the names of Tony McCloud and Alex Ivanov.」

Those were the aliases that Tony and Godunov would be using for their undercover mission. Their fake personas were meant to be buyers of illegal merchandise who wanted to take it to the Semani world and sell it over there, they even created fake reports and accounts of them on both the FBI and Police databases. Matoba usually went by “Kei Manobe” when he did this sort of work, and his profile even mentioned him being a former military soldier. According to the available data, he had even been charged for theft and assault during the past five and a half years. Tony and Godunov also had similarly believable profiles.

「I don’t mind that, but it is hard to believe that there are any people willing to actually buy porn magazines in this day and age, the era of communication. Nowadays anybody with an internet connection can enjoy high quality content from all over the world, without having to rely on distribution systems and local restrictions.」

Said O’Neill with a strangely empty voice. It was true though that a porn stealing gang focused entirely on physical copies was complete nonsense in this day and age.

「Yeah, you’re right. Which is why we think that as long as you run the rumour that we want to buy porn, we’re going to be fine.」 「Hm?」 「I think all we’re going to need is that you say we mean to take it over and sell it in Semani. Men are stupid no matter where they are after all.」

This was what Matoba had been saying since the beginning. We ended up asking O’Neill for help in the first place because he talked about the possibility existing, and he wanted us to look into it.

「It’s true that while porn magazines may seem completely outdated anywhere on earth nowadays, they would be incredibly valuable items in Semani, especially considering they only had paintings until recently. When you think about it like that, the idea of full nude, full color pictures of idols getting sold there…」

O’Neill suddenly clapped his hands.

「Would be a complete shock! A bigger event than even something like the renaissance!」 「It seems like you just realized something. Are you thinking of selling porn?」 「How rude. I have absolutely no intention of doing something like that. Something made out of paper would be too bulky to be useful anyways. I do not intend to invest on some dead stock to then end up feeling miserable and sad. If that were me…」 「If that were you then what?」 「No, nothing you need to be concerned about.」 「In any case just run that rumour please. And contact us if anything happens. Can you at least do that?」 「Alright then. Leave it to me.」

Proclaimed O’Neill loudly, as he smiled showing his all-white teeth.

~o~O~o~

Three days after Matoba’s beloved car became nothing but scraps, they were left with no leads whatsoever to the porn stealing gang. But it wasn’t that the investigation had been particularly poor or anything like that. In fact, it was pretty unusual to solve a case in under one or two days.

Matoba and the others kept working on the porn stealing investigation, along with other cases, so they kept searching with this bizarre mood. Tony and Godunov, and also O’Neill and several other informants, kept doing their job trying to bait them, but there didn’t seem to be any reaction whatsoever.

Meanwhile, Matoba and Tilarna were assigned an old sedan that had been parked at Police Headquarters for a long time, and was simply gathering dust until then. But just the next day after borrowing the car, its engine broke and so they had to go to work by subway and bus.

「Now we’re using the bus? Fuck, this sucks.」

Said Matoba, annoyed; while sitting on a cramped synthetic leather seat. An old man sitting in front of him turned around and raised his eyebrows at him, but Matoba didn’t even care at this point.

During the past three days Tilarna and Matoba had been speaking to each other the bare minimum and only for essential matters.

Matoba was still shocked after losing his beloved car, and Tilarna was still shocked after reading porn magazines for the first time. Matoba was still in a bad mood, and Tilarna was strangely avoiding him at all costs. Their interactions were limited to mostly one or two words after getting home every day, and then a short greeting in the morning: “Hey”, “‘Sup…”

It was totally awkward.

It also appeared like Tilarna had stopped her renovation of the first floor. Maybe Tilarna had started feeling uneasy about staying with Matoba permanently after all…

During those three days, Matoba had also started vaguely thinking about it. He had no reason whatsoever to stop her from leaving, and in fact it would be the easiest option. And although he thought it was a bit awkward, it was probably the most realistic option. So for now he would simply let things be and do nothing about it… or so he thought at least.

After leaving the subway station, they finally arrived at Police HQ. They entered the office and started doing some paperwork.

Right before noon, the phone on Tilarna’s desk rang.

That was quite unusual. She answered while looking confused, and then just replied “Understood, I’m going a little later then” and hung up. It seemed that she had finally gotten used to telephones. Matoba noticed it, but feigned ignorance. Sometime after noon, Tilarna grabbed her Krége at her side, and without saying a word, left the office all by herself.

「Is it okay for her to go alone?」

Asked Jamie as she looked at Matoba from another desk. She probably had noticed the awkward interactions between them the past few days. Camie, her partner, had left to work on a different case, so right now it was just her and Matoba.

「I don’t care. If she’s gained this sense of independence now, then that’s fine by me.」 「Oh.」

Jamie waited a little while after receiving such a cold response, and then talked to Matoba again

「Hey, Kei. Would you like to go out for lunch one of these days or something?」 「Ah… sure, I don’t mind or anything…」 「Matoba!」

The boss’s glass door opened, and Zimmer poked out half his body as he called Matoba over.

「In the end what happened with the porn stealing incident? Come here! Come right here and explain it all to me!」

He motioned Matoba to go into his booth with his thumb, and then went back into the room. Matoba simply rolled his eyes, shrugged and headed towards Zimmer’s booth.

「That’s fine. It’s not like we’re in a hurry or anything.」 「I’m sorry. I’ll have some info next time.」

Matoba laughed lightheartedly and left the booth.