Puzzle in Retrograde (Zuka)

[Kenji]

November 18th
8:00pm

Turnabout as they say was fair play. She had broken into his office once before, so in his mind it was only fair if he did the same to hers. If he was being honest he had expected a bit more of a challenge. However,he had been in her office for a while for a while and so far the hardest part about breaking into her office had been finding where Zuka kept her liquor.

 Soon enough, he found it though. It was Torch (of course it was) but not the usual stuff you found behind the bar, this one was in an older glass bottle, some vintage that had been in a cask on Ember Island for the last 30 years. When he saw that he contemplated putting it back. Then he saw that it had already been opened and based on the level of liquid had been enjoyed several times before he had happened upon it. So he thought better of it

He grabbed the bottle and glassware and placed them on her desk as he poured two glasses and took one as he sat down taking a slow mellow sip of the liquor letting the burn settle on his tongue as he tugged at his fedora for a minute as he let his thoughts wander. However he didn't have long after that as he heard the door click as it began to open.

"About time," he said with a chuckle "service here is terrible." He then raised the tumbler as he said " Liquors not bad though." as he finally turned to face who he knew was coming in.

[Zuka]

The last three days since she had left Kenjis office had been awful. Zuka had been left to her own devices and her mind left to wander about what she had placed in Kenjis hand and it ate away at her. Thoughts about what could go wrong and everything in between invaded her mind at every waking hour and she had not been able to get any kind of work done and so Zuka had shut herself away in her penthouse for the first two days as she tried to find a outlet. Training had worked for a while, she would get up in the morning and do her usual movements but the rest of the day was opened for something more intense. The sword she had used to train with back home was brought out of retirement. It usually hung on display on her wall with the occasional use but since it had been so long and would be something more involved than just fighting she thought it would be a good as time as any to pull it back out.

Zuka trained vigorously and after the second day had ended she was left feeling…slightly better. A lot of her anger had been taken out on her practice dummy..which, she made a mental note to replace that soon since it was mostly in pieces now. With her frustration worked out and her anger spent Zuka rested the rest of the day so she could return to work the next morning.

When the morning came Zuka woke early like she always did and carried out her usual routine before dressing and leaving her penthouse. The ride to the Dragon was short but the day ahead of her was long. Having spent two days away the work had piled up and Zuka spent the better half of her morning dealing with invoices and orders, booking gigs and making sure everything had kept running like it should have during her absence. It was the late afternoon when she finished with club work and moved on to Doll business.

Once she had finished meeting with Rei and Lina it was nearing 7 and Zuka had realized that she had been in her office all day. Deciding that she needed a change of scenery and something to eat she excused herself from the room and secured the door behind her before descending down the stairs to the club to find herself some dinner. Dinner was delicious as always and after she had finished Zuka made quick rounds through the club, stopping to talk with some people here or there. One older gentleman in particular had tried to monopolize her time, carrying on a conversation that, if she was truthful had no interest to her but she humored him for a while before finally pulling away.

With her duties done Zuka decided to return back to her office to finish out the day and to have a quiet drink but as she neared the door Zuka saw that there was a light on inside…and she knew she had turned them off when she left. Narrowing her eyes a little Zuka grabbed the handle of her door and turned it, finding it unlocked. Carefully she opened the door and stepped inside to see who was waiting for her and how they had gotten in but as soon as she saw who it was she relaxed a little.

"About time, service here is terrible. Liquors not bad though."

Zuka didn’t really have it in her right now to be mad and truthfully she really couldn’t be since she had broken into his office a few times already thou, she hadn’t helped herself to his rare liquor either. ”Had I known I might have been more inclined to be here.” Zuka answered, shutting the door behind her and walking around her desk and sitting down in her chair, if he was here then that had to mean he would have found something out right?  She hoped so, she hoped he had to have a reason to be here instead of just breaking in for the fun of it. ”Probably would have saved my private stock a little” Zuka saw that he had poured her a glass as well and she reached across to grab it before settling back in her seat.

[Kenji]

"Had I known I might have been more inclined to be here.Probably would have saved my private stock a little”

"You know I'm a little hurt." Kenji said clutching his chest in mock pain " I  don't just covertly break into everyone's office's Zuka, not at all, your special."  he said with a smirk as he threw an exaggerated wink her way. He then shrugged and pulled out a blue tinted envelope from his inside pocket as he took another leisurely sip of the drink " But hey, if you don't want answers tonight, I''d be happy to reschedule something, it's your coin after all."

He was baiting her obviously, but hey after the work he had put in and on the rather condensed timetable, he couldn't help but make her work for it a little.

(meh)

[Zuka]

You know I'm a little hurt.I don't just covertly break into everyone's office's Zuka, not at all, your special."

Zuka looked at him over the rim of her glass as she was mid sip and rolled her eyes "If you wanted to see me, Kenji, all you had to do was ask." She fired back..hey, she could play games too and since he started it she wasn't just going to let him go at it alone, no, because she always seemed to come out on the wrong end when that happened. Zuka finished taking the sip of her liquor and let it sit in her mouth a moment, getting a nice taste of the sweetness before the burn started and finally swallowing when it became too strong. There was something about Torch that just made her feel better. Maybe it was the reminder of home, maybe it was the warm feeling it gave you..one that started in your stomach and quickly spread all throughout your body. Whatever it was she liked it which is why she splurge and go for the expensive bottle when she got the chance.

Tho, next time she would have to hide it better.

"I hope you came all this way for something more than to raid my liquor cabinet." She thought about adding something to that but stopped. This whole ordeal had made her a bit snappy and she thought it was best to avoid doing that to the man that she was paying to find information for her. Zuka watched him pull the envelope from his inside pocket and she locked on to it while sitting up and leaning forward slightly and pushing her glass to the side, much more interested in the envelope. That was it, the answers that she wanted were in there, so close to her. "What did you find?"

[Kenji]

What did he find?

Well the answer to that was a lot, but if he was going to tell the tale then he was going to take it as his own pace, given the time and effort it had taken him to untangle the web. So with that he opened the envelope and withdrew the first piece as he began " This is a long walk down a crooked street, Zuka, so I'm gonna go piece by piece starting with the information I received from the Water Tribe Embassy."

****

2 Days earlier.....

Kenji was unsure if it was possible to die under an avalanche of paperwork, but he was very tempted to try and bury himself in the stack of very official looking documents. He had sifted through expense reports,meeting minutes. and dozens of other such thing to try and figure if there was someone in the embassy on the take or that had secrets to be exploited. He was expecting at least one or two....

He had not expected all of them.

Bribes from various companies and Water Tribe heritage groups alike, gambling debts,ties to organized crime, and secret apartments for mistresses, it was all there if you read between the lines, and honestly it was giving him a headache. It was like looking for one specific turtle duck in a very large pond....filled with turtle ducks. Granted he was sure that it was the same at the other embassys as well, however Water Tribe was getting the brunt of it todayHe put down the latest stack and took a swig of liqour from his glass as he rubbed his eyes and gave a sigh as he then dove back in and began reading anew.

Then he spotted something. He looked at it closer and then dove back into the stack he had already read trying to find a few things as his mind raced. He found he was looking for, and his mind hit the gas pedal.

***

"First of all let me say that I'm glad that my skepticism toward government remains valid as the hardest part of this whole thing wasn't finding a corrupt official, but finding which corrupt official was the right one. Which brings us to this." he said as he paused as he slid a small stack of papers toward Zuka as he continued " Those are the minutes from the meeting Raiko had with various ambassadors, back when the statue was first proposed. It was going to be a joint venture, half of it was to be paid for by the Water Tribe embassy and half by the presidents office as a "gesture of cooperation." Now the people that were in the meeting were both for an against for various reasons. However in the camp that was for it, there was one that was suspicious an Ambassador Arrluk."

He paused again and then continued " Arrluk is the new Financial Overseer for the embassy which is just a fancy way of saying, money man. He got his post a year ago, and word on the street is that him and Raiko go back from before they both found their way into politics." he then tossed a couple more documents down " Every expense report, and ....shall we say " donation", was logged and went through his office." He said pointing at the the ambassadors  signature at the bottom of all of the documents. " The problem was that the embassy was on thin ice, money wise. They just had enough for their operations, but definitely nowhere near the amount needed for a large scale project. So why would he be in favor, especially knowing that the office was struggling."

He then laid the final expense report down as he said " Then a couple days after Raiko confirms this "tip" suddenly the Embassies coffers are flush. They've got money to burn. Funny part is that there was donation listed or anything it;s as if the yuans magically appeared in their budgets. Now that's a hard magic trick to pull off...unless your the one that logs the money, then you can make whatever you want disappear....and reappear."

He paused and let Zuka process it all as he was sure she would eventually arrive to the same conclusion he did. Arrluk was the one who confirmed the tip, and had thrown her father reputation to to the wolves. However that was just the start off the tale, he wasn't done by a long shot. So he took the time to tip back his glass and sip the Torch as he watched her go through the documents.

[Zuka]

Zuka reached out her hand and slid the stack of papers back toward her and began to shuffle through them, reading a few here or there but she was far more interested in what Kenji had to tell her. She listened to what he had to say, her eyes scanning around the pages as she followed along but nothing really made sense.

Well, it did but it didn’t explain why.

There was no reason for any of this, or at least none that he had told her yet and she was sure that he had that information but was waiting for her to catch up and piece it together herself..but, she didn’t pay him for that. She paid for results

”But why?” Zuka asked as she was mid read on the next paper, pausing what she was doing to look over at him since he had finished. ”He would have had no dealings with my father so what can he gain from this?” If it was this Ambassador then that meant this was part of a much larger thing and that scared her a little bit. Could her father have been in some bad dealings before his death? She knew he was no Equalist but that didn’t mean he was as clean as she had always thought…as much as that hurt to think about.

[Kenji]

Kenji sighed and said “ You’ll get your answers, but it’s going to take a lot longer if I keep having to pause for you to ask questions I’m going to give the answers to.” he then paused for a minute and said “ When you do a puzzle you start at the edges and work your way inward, that’s what Arrluk is the edge. Now in order to find the rest that's where you have to get creative.”



He took another drink “ Now the problem with any sort of caper is that everyone has to stay strong under scrutiny, which is easy to do when you're riding high, but when something shakes it up, that's when the players reveal themselves. So that’s why I did, shake things up a little bit.” he paused and held up his hands “ discreetly of course.”

****

2 Nights earlier…..



Kenji was suited up and in full Ghost mode as he was perched precariously along the edge of the second floor of the Jade Blossom. He waited until some of the clients being escorted had been lead into their rooms and then slowly opened the door from the outside and slid in. Of course the Jade Blossom didn’t lock their windows after all, who would be able to get in that way, especially from so far up, without anybody noticing?



Kenji had honestly lost count of the number of places that had made the same mistake that he had later exploited.



He closed the window behind him and then it looked as if he had never been there as he made his way quietly through the hall until he came to the right room and then knocked gently.



Arrluk opened the door wearing nothing more than a very loose silk robe. He didn’t have time to utter a word, before Kenji lashed out and gave him a hard punch across the jaw, and he crumpled like laundry. Going into the room Kenji grimaced a little bit, but at least he was wearing a robe.



Kenji looked down at the rug that Arrluk had passed out on and got an idea as he then proceed to wrap the passed out water Tribe Ambassador in the blanket. He had just rolled up the rug with him in it when the door opened, and a scantily clad woman entered carrying a bottle of something.



She looked at him and he looked back. However she was still silent had not screamed. Kenji reached into his long coat's pocket and pulled out roll of bills and tossed it to her as he then said “ There a way out of there besides the front and back door?”



She took the roll and quickly counted it before saying “ Painting of a water serpent at the end of the hall,press it leads to stairs that lead to a back alley.”



Kenji nodded and then paused and pulled out another roll of bills as he said “ When you came back in, he had just vanished, you don’t know what happened to him. Say it.”



Her face then morphed to one of concern as her voice suddenly caught as she said “ I don’t happened, I went it to the room and he was just gone!”



Well Kenji had seen worse acting



“Pleasure doing buisness with you.” he said as he tossed the other roll of bills to her and then hefted the ambassador stuffed rug and made his way out.

*** 

One long trip down small stairs, and one short Satomobile trip later he was in the midst of Republic City park, hefting the rug still. Coming to stop near one of the man made lakes in the park he then waited for a minute and when he was sure the coast was clear and then unrolled the rug and let the ambassador roll into the lake.



Kenji then retreated into the shadows and watched as the ambassador popped up, spurting out water and yelling in confusion. Kenji had to contain his laughter.



However even funnier still was the look on his face when he got back to the shore and saw the note waiting for him that just said: I know what you did.

**** 

Kenji continued “ Once things had been shaken, the snakes came out of the woodwork, and thanks to a friend of mine, that’s handy with a camera. We have this.”



He then placed a few photos on the desk. One showed showed the ambassador meeting with a shady looking character. Arrluk seemed worried. The next showed the shady looking character handing an envelope to Arrluk. The next showed the envelope open revealing the yuan inside, clearly a payoff. The the last were the two parting.



He continued “ The snake in question goes by Miki. He’s a member of the Red Monsoons, used be big in the Blackfin business until his biggest customer, a probender by the name of Hu was kicked of his pro bending team.” he paused and raised his eyebrows, figuring Zuka would know what he was talking about “ After that the rest of business fell apart as well and he lost major stranding in the Monsoons, which would give him good reason to want to embarrass you and this whole mess does just that.”



He finished off his drink and said “ There you have it, proof that the tip was bogus and that the person who confirmed it is in the Triads pocket. You give this info to raiko, he’ll have no choice not only to publicly deny the accusations against your father and keep the ceremony on schedule, and the ambassador's going to be out of a job.”



The one thing he didn’t say was that anyone was going to jail, because in honesty he knew that no one was. This was a scandal and embarrassment, and though it was enough to motivate Raiko to act in the way Zuka wanted, no doubt the ambassador would just be quietly fired and deported back to the Water Tribe to sweep this under the rug. And with the former ambassador gone, the case against the Red Monsoon member would no doubt fall apart.



It wasn’t a perfect win, but it was as close as you got in Republic City.



He paused and waited in case Zuka had any other questions and to collect the other half of his money after all the case wrapped up nice and neat as far as Zuka was concerned.

[Zuka]

Telling her that they would get through this quicker if she would stop asking questions made Zuka shut her mouth and give a deep sigh. There were so many things she wanted to ask, so many things she wanted to know but she supposed she should give him the chance to explain it all, after all that was what she had paid him for.

When he mentioned shaking things up Zuka rose a brow and was about to say something more when he quickly tacked on that it had been done discreetly she sighed once more and sat back, taking a drink from her glass and ready for his story.

As the pictures were brought up she sat back up and pulled them closer and examined them as he explained. While Zuka was deeply interested in hearing about all of this her interest peaked considerably when she heard a familiar name. Miki, she knew of him and what he did and as soon as Kenji mentioned Hu that was when everything fell into place for her. ”That bastard” she said angrily while throwing the photos back onto the desk and throwing back the rest of her drink. ”That good for nothing rat- Zuka reeled herself back in and reached for the bottle to refill her glass, taking a drink and tapping her finger nails against the desk.

It was one thing to try to sabotage someones business or name to get revenge but to go after her father who had done nothing had just crossed a line for Zuka. She had been on good terms with the Red Monsoons too and then here comes this rat that could potentially ruin that relationship.

She hardly heard what else Kenji was saying as she was starting to from plans in her mind on how she was going to handle this but she caught enough to piece it together. Right, take these to Raiko and show him the proof that her father had been set up and make this right. Like Kenji said, the Ambassador would be dealt with internally which meant quietly and that didn’t seem like a good enough punishment for her.

"So thats it then? all of that just to get back at me." she shook her head, there had to be easier ways.

”Thank you” Zuka said once she had calmed down slightly ”you don’t know what this means to me.” He had done something she couldn’t have done without causing a big scene and she owed him for that.

[Kenji]

"So thats it then? all of that just to get back at me."



Kenji paused and said " If you think about it, if he tried something in the open it might have repercussions with the gang. This way he still gets a shoot at you but his hands are clean. It's clever," he raised his hands "a rotten thing to do, but clever nonetheless."

As Zuka thanked him, he could tell she was sincere,which to be honest made him a little uncomfortable, so he waved it off as he said "Don't mention it," he paused and said " no seriously, don't mention it. It gets out I did some work for you and the other triads are gonna get the wrong idea, and that's annoyances I don't need."

"Besides," he said "I was just doing my job."

He paused "Speaking of which....I'll take the other half of my fee whenever you ready." he said

[Zuka]

At Kenji's explanation Zuka made a 'hmm' sound. He was right, it was better to go after her indirectly than it would be to try to take her on head on but that still didn't make any of this better. In fact she wished he would have tried to take her on because she would have accepted that challenge even if it meant losing their good standing with the Red Monsoons.

"Trust me, our business does not leave this room." Zuka didn't want others to know that she had hired someone to take care of something for her and Kenji didn't want word to get out that he had done work for a Triad so for the both of them it was in both their interest to let this die here.

"I was just doing my job. Speaking of which....I'll take the other half of my fee whenever you ready."

At the mention of the other half of his fee Zuka sat up "Right" she got to her feet and walked around to her part of the desk where he was sitting 'Do you mind?" she asked, waiting for him to move so she could get to where she needed. Removing a key ring from her pocket Zuka unlocked the middle drawer of the desk that held the envelope with his Yuans along with a few other things. Pulling the drawer open Zuka took out the envelope and handed it to Kenji. "The rest of your pay as well as the bonus I promised." After handing the money over Zuka leaned her backside against the desk and crossed her arms loosely "Look, I know you don't like working with Triads but, if you ever need anything all you have to do is ask." Even if she had just paid him a hefty sum she wanted to extend that offer.

[Kenji]

'Do you mind?"

He moved to let her get by her desk as in the midst of all of his exposition he had legitimately forgot where he was sitting.

When she handed him the money,he made quick work counting it. Zuka was good on her word. He listened s she offered to help should he ever need it. For a moment a genuine smile crossed his lips, but quick as it came, it faded away into the more common smirk as he said " I'll.... keep that in mind, but  at the end of the day,I'm a simple man Zuka, the money and," he paused and lifted up his glass in mock toast as he said " the drink will do just fine thanks." 

[Zuka]

"Clearly" Zuka said, glancing at the bottle on the desk with a sigh. "Well, be that as it may the offer stands." Zuka usually didn't like giving out favors but in this case she would make a exception but now that their business was done she had other things to think about.

Taking her eyes from the half empty bottle and bringing them back to Kenji Zuka looked at him with a raised brow "If you don't mind, I'd like my seat back" she made a 'shoo' motion with her hand and waited for him to move. Kenji could finish his drink as slow as he wanted but he could do so on the other side of the desk.

[Kenji]

 As she made the motion Kenji smirked and said  " Well if you insist." He tilted the glass back and finishing off the rest of what was left in his glass in one smooth gulp as he then got up from the chair. He made his way to the door giving a mock salute as he went saying " See you around Zuka. Don't worry I'll see myself out." he said with a soft laugh.

(End)