American variety show: The Godfather, the Peace Ambassador, what the heck?

Chapter 183 Southern District Melee
Colin arrived terrified and left in a daze, taking with him a lot of information about the South District gangs, as well as three fish.

Fresh, just caught from the river.

I'd heard that in Sicily, giving fish as a gift isn't a good omen, but the pigeon advised him not to be superstitious. He's a law student and a policeman, how can he still believe in this?
Dead fish have a bad connotation.

After returning home, Colin cooked fish himself and called his girlfriend, inviting her over for dinner.

The two are not currently living together and are separated by distance, but Colin feels it's time—does he still have any choice in his fate? The future is indeed full of unknowns, but there is always an invisible hand above him, and the ceiling he can touch is the palm of that hand.

However, judging from his interactions with the man and his reputation in the underworld, Pigeon seemed to be a pretty nice gangster boss. Colin was respected, and at least the man didn't push him to do this or that.

Looking at the fish on the cutting board, then at the cleaver in his hand, Colin's gaze was unfocused for a moment. He was clearly holding the knife, yet he felt a strange sense of helplessness.
Well, I've already chosen to continue being a policeman.

Doorbell rang.

Colin greeted his girlfriend with a smile as she entered the house. Seeing the lingering dark circles and tired look on his face, she cupped his cheeks and teased, "We've only been apart for a day or two, and you've already missed me so much you look this haggard?"

His girlfriend was a psychologist, and Colin knew immediately that she had noticed something was wrong. He could hide his gangster identity, but he couldn't hide his mental state. "There have been a lot of cases lately. Since Costello died, the whole South District has been in chaos. I worked very late last night."

"Working in the middle of the night, are you leaving no way for those gangsters to make a living?"

"For the peace of the South District."

"You've even come up with a slogan?"

His girlfriend laughed and joked. Although he was suspicious, he didn't press the matter further and simply told her to take care of herself.

Men who are focused on their careers are very attractive. They are ambitious, have goals, and are full of expectations for the future. As a psychologist, my girlfriend knows very well that these are the high-quality men. She gives them support and encouragement, not holds them back.

Colin kissed his girlfriend, and the couple enjoyed a pleasant dinner together.

Why did you decide to eat fish today?

"I haven't eaten in a long time."

"It tastes great, the fish is very fresh. Which store did you buy it from?"

"."

Colin was speechless. That wasn't a shopping mall; it was a cemetery—the area under the bridges of the Nippensit River and the outskirts of Boston were places where gangsters dumped and buried bodies. They would dig holes on the riverbank, and at any moment, they could unearth rotting corpses. There were countless cases in the police department of passersby accidentally digging up bodies, and most of the bodies were difficult to identify.

Colin didn't want to discuss where the fish came from, so his girlfriend went on to talk about a patient she had recently been seeing—Billy.

She didn't mention his name, but talked about his strangeness: "...He used to be a police academy student, but he was expelled from the academy after being imprisoned for assaulting someone. He's not in a good mental state and is constantly struggling with lies and the truth, confused about his identity. If he lies to do good, does he want to be an honest person? But he's unwilling to say why he lies."

Colin paused for a moment, then chuckled and said, "Do you see these kinds of strange patients every day?"

“If he wasn’t mentally ill, he wouldn’t have come to me.”

His girlfriend asked curiously, "Have you ever lied?"

Colin joked, "For example, do you look like an 18-year-old girl?"

My girlfriend smiled and said, "I just think that honesty and truth are not synonyms. What the patient wanted was not the truth, but to reconcile with himself and be his true self. But he seemed to be living in an environment where he could not open up to his inner self. The long-term repression made him very painful."

Colin felt a jolt in his heart. How could this sound so much like himself?
Has my girlfriend already noticed something's wrong with me? Is she deliberately making up a fake patient to test me?
Colin suddenly felt that his girlfriend's insight was a bit too strong.

They're not even living together yet. If they were, what would happen? They'd be stripped bare.

Colin quickly abandoned the idea of ​​living together.

Let's put it off for now. Wait until my work and life are more stable.

Two days later, Colin arrived at the police station with some intelligence provided by Old Pigeon and slammed it onto Dickman's desk.

The loud slap attracted the attention of many colleagues.

“The information you wanted!” Colin said irritably. “This is what I found out by asking those high-quality prostitutes at the club! It turns out that as long as you pay and they're good at their job, they can satisfy all your needs! Fuck!”

This was obviously a sarcastic joke, but Dickman was so angry he laughed. "Damn it, you're trying to slap me in the face, aren't you?"

He pulled out the intelligence report and glanced at it. It contained a lot of information about Irish gangs, which was quite useful, but there was relatively little information about the three major gangs. Information about "Frenchman," "White Hair," and others was completely missing.

“Well done,” Dickman quipped. “Looks like you know how to please women. But what about the Winter Mountain Gang’s intelligence?”

Colin retorted sarcastically, "I'll be able to find out once I sleep with their boss's girlfriend."

A burst of laughter filled the hall. Dickman stood up and glared at everyone. "What the hell are you all standing there for? Let's go! Get moving! According to this list the prostitute gave us, keep a close eye on those damn gangsters. Follow them, wiretap them, lock them up, beat them, extract confessions—whatever methods you use, as long as you get them to confess, I'll vouch for them all!" Dickman then glanced back at Colin. "I'm a man of principle. After this operation, I'll apply to the higher-ups for a major commendation for you!"

Luca only provided a list of criminals, some of whom were obtained through investigations into the family's criminal channels, and others were from Costello's safe, which contained numerous shady business records and criminal evidence.

First, deal with the small street gangs in the South District, either by wiping them out or forcing them to find a bigger backer to band together.

Luca's methods this time were quite violent and direct. He even had Leon and Nightmare secretly carry out targeted assassinations of small gang leaders to create greater chaos and provide intelligence to Colin so that the police could take targeted action.

In just over ten days, by Christmas Eve, several small gangs in South Boston had become virtually defunct; the police acted too quickly and ruthlessly.

During this time, Luca, as an intelligence provider, amassed a considerable amount of skill points and fragments. The most impactful event of this was the assassination of the leader of the Killing Gang—though this wasn't orchestrated by Luca.

It is said that someone leaked the whereabouts of the leader of the Jilin Gang. The leader had just come out of his lover's house for a rendezvous. On his way back at night, his car was forced to stop, and then he was subjected to a barrage of fire, turning the car and himself into sieves.

He died on the spot.

This surprised Luca quite a bit. He hadn't even considered taking action against the three major gangs. The death of Costello was enough. If a few more bosses died, there would be too many variables. After all, what he wanted was not to kill them all, but to take control.

Now that the leader of the Kirin Gang is dead, White Hair has become the biggest leader within the Kirin Gang, and a civil war has begun.

Luca was in New York for Christmas when he received the message.

Colin called to report: "It was the Winter Mountain Gang who did it in cahoots with White Hair! White Hair betrayed his boss and leaked the information to the Winter Mountain Gang!"

Luca remained silent for a few seconds.

This white-haired guy is pretty damn good at using others to do his dirty work.

It seems that killing Costello prematurely has caused a serious butterfly effect, with the rare card players in the South District coming up with many new tricks in their melee.

Luca asked Colin, "Is the news confirmed?"

Colin: "It was provided by Dickman's informant. If I'm not mistaken, Dickman has planted an undercover agent within the Winter Mountain Gang, but I don't know who it is or how many there are."

Luca was slightly taken aback: "There's more than one undercover agent?"

Luca knew that Costello had planted more than one undercover agent in the police department, but in the original storyline of Infernal Affairs, only Billy was the police's undercover agent in the Winter Mountain Gang.

Colin wasn't entirely sure either: "I suspect there's more than one. It's also possible that the police have turned the Winter Mountain Gang's top brass against them and obtained intelligence from within. Old Pigeon, the situation in the South District is getting more and more chaotic. Since White Hair rose to power, his methods have become even more violent. On Christmas Eve alone, there were five or six murders."

Luca raised an eyebrow. The white-haired man was indeed bloodthirsty, suspicious, and violent; those who defied him were buried. In the original storyline, after unifying Boston, he marched all the way to Miami. If he wanted to do business, he'd simply kill the CEO and seize his shares.

The CEO isn't selling his shares?
—Then his widow will surely sell it.

This is just how White Hair acts.

He killed too many people, which aroused widespread discontent. Some were so afraid of him that even his FBI underlings, whom he had recruited, eventually betrayed him, no longer wanting to continue his madness.

Later, White Hair fled and was wanted globally, becoming one of the world's top ten most wanted criminals, with his image placed alongside those of certain "uncles" in the Middle East.

It wasn't until more than a decade later that he was caught by the federal government and eventually killed in prison by the Mafia—getting revenge for White Hair's betrayal of the Mafia years ago.

What a legendary life. Luca thought to himself that if he couldn't control this dangerous figure who was comparable to Joe Gallo, it would be better to find an opportunity to get rid of him.

But a suitable opportunity must arise; at the very least, the death of the white-haired man must not affect Luca's "relationship" with the Senate president.

What Luca truly desires is the friendship of the white-haired chairman's brother, and that enormous protective umbrella, which requires a suitable opportunity to enter into.
If a member of parliament wants to become chairman, he/she must have a large number of votes and public support. To gain support, he/she needs a huge amount of campaign funds, must weaken and attack his/her opponents, make concessions to other members of parliament, form alliances, and make promises to the public, promising to meet the needs of these allies and the public after taking office.

With such a massive flow of social resources, Luca thought he should still have some say, provided he could expand his business and influence in Boston and even Massachusetts, and firmly control Boston through political and business alliances and cooperation between the underworld and legitimate businesses.

The era of peace has arrived.

Pulling myself back to reality, Colin was still on the phone describing the current situation in the South District. Gang warfare had turned the area into chaos, but fortunately it was confined to the gangs themselves, and no innocent civilians had been killed, which eased the pressure on the police—at least many of the gang members who were killed wouldn't report it to the police; they would just secretly seek revenge on their own.

Luca replied, "I'll come to Boston next year. I'm not good at much else, but I'm best at mediating gang disputes. Can't we sit down and talk about any conflicts?"

Next year? Colin realized it was already Christmas, and New Year's was just a few days away. "Old Pigeon, can this be mediated?"

“I will make them all sit down and have to accept my mediation.”

"."

Colin was impressed and filled with awe. Whether Old Pigeon was bragging or truly capable, he certainly exuded confidence when he said those words.

(End of this chapter)