I Fought The Law...

[Ramlock]

"Well, not exactly. I'm a truant officer."

Cyril's tone had switched from curious to authoritative and polite in a matter of moments. He didn't elaborate any further, content to allow the lie to sink in. Lies always worked better the less you said. The person receiving the lie had to be able to fill in the details themselves, figure out what you meant without prompting. And, if you were really lucky, it would put them on the defensive, at least a little bit. Eri clearly wasn't a young girl, but old enough to be in school? It was believable. Not that it was too uncommon. Cyril certainly wouldn't want it going on in his speakeasy, though.

"If you have any information that could help me find her, I'd appreciate it."

It was certainly interesting that she was using a fake name... Not surprising perhaps, given the rarity of the name Eri in the first place, but it was a bit more foresight than he'd expected. She'd traveled halfway across the country, after all. It wasn't like she was in clear danger of being spotted by anyone from New York...

[Nayt]

All the color drained from the woman's face at that moment. It was as if she were staring Death right in the face. A truant officer?! That would mean that Mai was under the age of eighteen. Alcohol was illegal anyways, but it was original illegal to consume under the age of eighteen--and that law hadn't been repealed when the Prohibition Act was passed! If she was found out . . . the repercussions would be intense. That was a problem that no personal resources--knowing the right people--could assist.

Cyril certainly knew how to get people to talk.

The manager replaced her look of horror with a look of stern disappointment, not in Cyril, but in Mai. It was a false expression, something that was suppose to mask the absolute terror she was feeling at the moment, and how hard her heart was beating. There were only a few options, and this was the best, it seemed. Other ones included naming this man to others, but that would take time and effort, and if he got her name out before she got his . . . well, it didn't matter what happened to him in the end, she'd still be done for.

The woman tore a piece of paper from her notebook, scribbling down information, and handing it to Cyril quite promptly. "Here. If you see that brat, tell her I don't want to see her skipping school here again."

Mai Uematsu. Gerstein Hotel. 1515 Brooke Avenue. It was all she knew, but for a "truant officer," that would be more than enough information.

[Ramlock]

Cyril maintained a look of complete authoritative innocence as the color drained from the owner's face. Did he know this was a speakeasy? No. He just wanted to find a girl he was responsible for. This woman hadn't done anything wrong; in fact, she had cooperated perfectly. The best thing about dealing with law enforcement was that most specialized officers had little to no communication with other specialized departments...

"Thank you, ma'am. You've done a great service today. If you'll excuse me, though, I'll have to go take care of this. Children sometimes..."

Standing, he would tip his hat lightly, turning to leave the store. He had practically found Eri already, under the name Mae Uematsu, and at the same time, removed an erstwhile ally from her. This was only part of what he had agreed to do, but he was earning his pay already. Now, assuming the lead was good, he had three major requirements left before he completed the job. He needed some photographic evidence, he needed to know what sort of people she was dealing with, and he needed to know a bit more about his employer's methods before he was going to release this sort of information...

[Nayt]

"Glad I could help," she replied nervously.

Yeah, he'd gotten her attention, and got a nice deal of information out of her, enough to locate Eri under a pseudonym. That hotel was on the other side of town, where concerns about the bigger picture were expected to be a bit wider than usual. Here on this side of the town, the "bigger picture" was the Chicago Outfit, and one didn't need to treat too lightly to get by. In fact, there were more opportunities here for entertainment than there were chances of running into a bad crowd. The worst crowd one could run into without owing money were the police.

On the north side of town, though . . .

That was only a minor inconvenience to someone experienced with Chicago, nonetheless. It all simply depended on how Cyril wished to progress. He had options. He could track down Eri Tetsuken to that hotel where he'd have to be a bit more concerned about the North Side Gang than he would the Chicago Outfit, investigate Kiosna where the Chicago Outfit didn't have to merit too much concern, or any other option that came to mind. He had a load of them, it simply all depended on how he wanted to progress with the job.

[Ramlock]

If Eri was using a false name, she was most likely changing her address regularly, as well... Or at least, there was a better chance of her moving and his lead being completely ruined. The Kiosna name, and their activities, were just as likely to remain as accessible later. To that effect, Cyril would leave, heading towards the hotel. The location was a bit surprising, as he'd figured her for someone who would have avoided the north side... Still, he wanted to follow up as quickly as possible...

Cyril would make his way towards the north side on foot, finding things a lot easier when not dealing with a car in this sort of situation. The fewer ways there were to identify him, the better. Not that he did things to hinder any gangs in particular, but there were some people who would probably rather he not come around. Anyone who was good at finding out information was a potential threat, after all.

On reaching the hotel, Cyril would begin by checking it from the outside. The size, the level of luxuriousness, the kind of people frequenting it... If he was lucky, he might even catch of a glimpse of someone notable. Not that they necessarily had ties to Eri- plenty of unrelated people went the same hotels. But not always. A few casual pictures of such people didn't hurt, either...

[Nayt]

The hotel certainly wasn't luxurious, not the kind of five star place that a person who knew how to spend money stayed in. Four stories jutted into the sky like a limp and unsatisfactory lover, the outside walls were in disrepair, and some of the windows on the fourth story were broken out--like for renovations. Renovations that weren't going to be done for the next few months or so.

In short, it was an economy hotel.

It had its merits, though. Connected to the right side was an offshoot add-on building, used as an eatery, where any patron of the hotel could go and have a drink or get a bite to each whenever they wanted, really, so long as they had the money--and it was quite overpriced. People often took advantage of that and didn't give it a single ounce of thought, those add-on diners and cafes seen on hotels and the like that made enough money to support it. Certainly, this wasn't the thing that could be built without a lot of excessive profits, and considering how it looked on the outside . . . how revenue was gathered would perhaps remain a mystery.

There were a lot of people, especially crowding in at the diner, but there were no signs of any pink hair Japanese-Americans in the crowd, and if Cyril waited for hours, he'd find the same issue. She either wasn't coming back in the near future, or she was already in her room--one of the two.

[Ramlock]

After a short time of waiting, Cyril decided to collect a bit more information. Like, for example, what room Eri was staying in. That would make his job somewhat easier. He wasn't going to be entering her room or anything like that, but there was no reason he couldn't get another room on the same floor or anything like that. These sorts of hotels only usually had bathrooms for the entire floor, rather than inside the rooms, which meant frequent traffic of residents through the halls...

With that in mind, Cyril would approach the front desk clerk. Hotels kept records of where people were in their rooms, even if they didn't really give them to anyone, and in this case, Cyril could take advantage of that. He could read upside down practically as well as in the correct orientation. It also helped that there were no telephones in rooms in this sort of place. When he reached the desk, Cyril would speak to the clerk with a somewhat urgent tone.

"Hey, I need to give a message to a guy named Mac Ulster. Last time I talked to him, he said he was staying here. Can you tell me what room he's staying in?"

It was a made-up name, but one that superficially resembled Eri's pseudonym. The clerk would likely scan the names quickly, but when he saw Mai Uematsu, he was likely going to pause for just a second before moving on to find a name that didn't exist. When he did, Cyril would likely be able to read the room number next to her name...

[Nayt]

The inside of the hotel looked a lot better than the outside, at least. Granted, it was still in no way the best hotel out there, but rather than getting a two star rating from a look at the exterior, it could at least get a three star rating if the person checked the inside out. There was a large and lengthy lobby with two main hallways, to the right and left, and a large economically ornate staircase leading up to the second floor. It was pretty clear just looking at the inside that it cost less money to make it look good on the inside than out.

There was a wide desk about twenty feet in front of the staircase where a young man--couldn't be out of his teenage years yet--in a red uniform stood, a bell nearby, and several books and pamphlets that were necessary for his job. As soon as he saw Cyril, he prepared to greet him, but alas . . .

The urgency in Cyril's voice commanded the utmost attention from the overworked bellboy. He abandoned the act of greeting a potential customer, and though he didn't show that he was a bit stressed out, the way he flipped through the pages in the little book in front of him would say more than enough.

As expected, there was no Mac Ulster. Unexpectedly, though, he had gone backwards. U was much closer to the end of the alphabet than anywhere else, so he had essentially started at the end--at Z--and flipped in reverse order, going backwards through the list of names until he reached the page where the Ul's met the Um's. The records were pretty long, too, and being reprinted every other day, they only kept growing. The page he was on contained nothing but names from Ulrich to Umyagn. No Mac Ulster, but he hadn't even gone by the page with Mai Uematsu. Cyril's plan came up short.

"I'm sorry, sir," the bellboy shook his head, "There's been no one of that name checked in for the last six months. Are you sure your friend said he was in this hotel?"

[Ramlock]

That was certainly a frustrating development. Why would they even take the time to do that? So much work for such a useless registry. It's like the owner had somehow tried to make his life more difficult. Still... It wasn't like that was all his options. He just had to be more direct about it. Somewhat. As a teenage boy, working in a small hotel where a young, flirtatious and unique woman lived, the odds of him knowing who she was and which room she lived in were better than even. In fact, if she was as much of a teaser as she was claimed to be, there was a good chance every male in the hotel knew which room she stayed in...

"That's... Odd. Oh, you know what? He travels with his niece a lot. Cute girl, pink hair. I think her name was... May? I don't remember. I could deliver the message to her instead. I'm not allowed to leave stock information where anyone else can get at it, but I can send it through family."

It was... Perhaps a bit strange. Not exactly standard procedure to give someone's room number out. But he was a young clerk, and Cyril approached with an air of simply needing to deliver some information. If worse came to worse... It was getting to be late afternoon or evening. Likely, this clerk was near the end of his shift, and Cyril could simply rent a room from the next teller and wait in the dining room. It would already be evening and the rates would be cheap anyway. It would be nice to know which floor she was on before he did so, though...

[Nayt]

"May?" he asked initially.

It didn't take very long for him to figure out who Cyril was talking about. Flirtatious, attractive woman with pink hair? The woman practically stuck out like a red flag in a white field, especially to a young person like the bellboy, who was more likely to observed with interest than anyone else.

"Oh! You mean . . . um . . ." he coughed, "M-Ms. Uematsu."

A fairly awkward reaction, but he was a young guy--chances were that he had a bit of a thing for the woman, and right so. Cyril had seen the picture. It was difficult for any self respecting man to consider her anything short of physically attractive. Stewart's take was a bit deeper, though--he had considered her a floozy, and though attracted to Eri, he was: 1. already married, and 2. didn't like loose women. Physical attraction was sort of menial to him, especially with all of his problems. Nonetheless, it seemed as if the bellboy knew who Cyril was talking about, as expected.

Unfortunately, though . . .

"Ms. Uematsu checked out six days ago," he regretfully replied--personal regret, really. It was a shame to watch a broad like that go. Just to make sure, he opened the other book to check. "Yeah. Six days ago at 6:32am. I'm sorry. Is there anyone else that your friend might be staying with at our hotel?"

It may have sounded a bit strange, but it wasn't uncommon for people to live out of a hotel--as leachers. If a guy had a friend who had a two week stay at a hotel, he could stay there with him on the fly and pay nothing, and go on until he finally had to put out some cash for living expenses. With the economy so good, it was sometimes cheaper to live in a hotel than it was to actually own a house.

[Ramlock]

Cyril almost smiled at the boy's reaction, but couldn't. That was certainly annoying. His information was six days bad already. Still, she wasn't exactly hiding. Just living under a different name. That the grocery store manager had her address was evidence enough of that. And if she was living out of hotels, that meant something very useful. She had to leave a method of forwarding mail or contacts, especially when there were so few phones around...

"No, I don't think so. Mac would have gone with her, wherever she went. That's unfortunate, though. May must have left a forwarding address or number, though?"

Cyril wasn't ready to abandon this lead, especially when he had been so close. And fortunately, given Eri's attractiveness, the clerk must have acquired some method of contacting her by theft or otherwise, even if it would never be feasible for him to use it. And if he felt guilty about it, he would feel less guilty by giving it to someone with a real reason for contacting her. Not that he could blame him. Cyril wasn't really looking now, mostly as a matter of convenience and because of the somewhat frequent intimidation attempts. Still... If things were different, maybe in another world, Cyril could see himself with someone like Eri...

[Nayt]

"A forwarding address . . .?"

The bellboy hesitated a moment. This didn't seem like something he should be doing, giving away personal information of a customer, but the cause seemed good enough. No one else that asked had a reason, at least not those that had asked him before. Cyril's seemed genuine enough. He flipped through their records. That was the not-so-impractical part about their six month registration history: they had personal and contact information listed there in depth, while it wasn't much more than shorthand information on the immediate registration. That one had to be done quickly to ensure proper treatment of the customer, with notes filled out later. He took one from a pile of the hotel's business cards, flipped it, and wrote on the back.

"Here. This is all we have on record . . ." the bellboy stated as he handed Cyril the card.

On it was information that one would find a horrendously useless--if only because the address listed wasn't in Chicago. It wasn't even in America--and it wasn't even to a home. Even on a high budget, this wasn't a lead that Cyril would be able to make use of. On an infinite budget, perhaps--but he certainly didn't get paid enough to leave the country, even if the job called for it.

Tokyo Central Post Office
7-2, Marunouchi 2-Chome,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8799

"To my knowledge, anything sent there with K-T written on the back is forwarded to her family directly. She didn't provide a contact number or official address, though . . ." the bellboy held back a sigh. Cyril was right about him--he would have preferred to know more about Uematsu, but alas . . .

[Ramlock]

Cyril looked over the card, disappointed in the way his lead had turned so sour. Not even a genuine address: just a general one. He was going to have to look for something new. He had nothing at the moment. Several people who had seen her, but no one who had any further information on her. Stewart, the grocery store manager, the clerk... All of them with no more help to offer, short of descriptions of her behavior.

"Thanks. I'll have to see if I'm authorized for this, though. Thanks for your help."

Short of an epiphany, Cyril would leave the hotel. The next morning, he would try a different track. The courthouse. He had a Tetsuken, an Uematsu, and a slew of Kiosnas to research. They tended to not include addresses or contact information, but even knowing the name of the opposition or a co-litigant could be enough for a clue. The good thing about being a detective was that people left footprints everywhere they went, and some just happened to be better than others...

[Nayt]

The clerk at the courthouse, busy as she was, allowed Cyril access to the public records. It certainly helped that he had a profession that dealt with this sort of thing--investigation and the like. A detective made his money on finding people, information about people, stolen goods, and things along those lines, and it all required names and history. Sometimes, all one of them had to do was say who they were, and a court clerk wouldn't even give a second thought to giving them access to these sorts of things or not. That was Cyril's case this morning.

The amount of cases accessible to the public was pretty expansive, especially the ones dealing with Chicago. Oddly enough, there were several dealing with situations and larger cases outside of Chicago, but things such as divorce hearings, petty theft, and misdemeanors in general didn't have any merit or reason to hold record in a Chicago court building. After all, this was a city dealing with felonies, and city officials and the law enforcement knew that. If someone like, say, Al Capone were to have committed a crime in downstate Illinois, it was unlikely to be a simple misdemeanor, and something worth investigating, but Joe Shmoe in New York City swiping cigarettes from a convenient store just wasn't worth the time of officials this far from New York.

Unfortunately for Cyril there was nothing. No traces of Kiosnas or Uematsus or Tetsukens as litigants or co-litigants. If they had been involved in a lawsuit of some kind, then it certainly didn't take place in Illinois (as Hinan suggested, they were centered 'round New York City, and Chicago was a fairly new place to them), and couldn't have been a big enough case to merit record in Chicago. Either that or they were clean, and despite Hinan Kiosna's shady nature, they hadn't gotten their noses dirty.

"Great!" a voice declared from behind Cyril.

Behind Cyril, standing in the doorway of the record room, was a man whose only visible details were a thin frame, a gray long coat, and a gray fedora. His face was obscured behind a camera, professional pop-and-go bulb flash attached to the top; no expense was spared. It was very professional--top of the line stuff, the sort of merchandise that people were still going to seek out in the next fifteen years.

He hadn't taken a shot yet, though. "I'm here to snap one of the public records, and there's already someone here! This'll make a good'n. Hey, would you mind bendin' down a little bit to open that bottom drawer right there? And look to the camera a bit, sort of like I snuck up on you, y'know?"

[Ramlock]

Cyril had lost a few hours with no leads, but at least he didn't have to feel like he'd missed an important opportunity. Records from other states were going to be much more difficult to retrieve, and possibly not worth it. That was the paradox of money- Big money meant you left a big trail, but had the ability to choose what trail it was. As he prepared to leave, he was interrupted, though...

"No, I don't think so. I've got to be going."

Cyril would avoid ever looking into the camera, mostly to give the man a poor shot. He wasn't an actor or anything like that. He was an investigator. He wasn't afraid of being seen in the public records section, but he sure wasn't going to pose for a photo for any clown with a camera who wanted to come in. For now, the man was in his way, though, so he would move forward with the obvious intention of pushing past the man and leaving while he did whatever he liked...