>>> [BBS THREAD: Dolores is dead. Who's got the book?]
[THREAD STARTED BY: /Ledger] 2075-01-23

/Ledger

Dolores Bianchi, 61, Bridgeport. Died Saturday night, January 19th. Stroke, in her kitchen, with the kettle still on. No foul play that anyone has been able to invent, and several people have tried.

For those who never dealt with her: she brokered work on the South Side for thirty-odd years, mostly small jobs, mostly honest by our standards. Everyone who owed her a favor was in one book. Now the book is missing and half this board is suddenly a close personal friend of the family.

I'm posting this so the record is straight. It was a stroke. The rest is noise.

/RubyRose

SHE UNDERPAID ME TWICE AND I'D STILL CARRY HER COFFIN. I LOVED HER. show some respect before you start digging through her drawers, you vultures

/Ledger

You said "vultures" in a thread you replied to in eleven minutes.

/RubyRose

I'M GRIEVING FAST

/Abuela_Diesel

I was at the parish hall Tuesday. Two Lone Star plainclothes at the back, taking notes on who cried. Three people I know are not who they said they were at the sign-in book. One of them brought a casserole. Nobody brings a casserole to a funeral in this town unless they need something out of the house.

Her sister Marguerite is fighting the funeral home over the bill and the landlord over the deposit and now, apparently, everyone over a notebook she swears she's never seen.

/Cubicle_9

Just asking questions. Why would it be a physical book? Can't a fixer's contacts be in the cloud or something? Asking for a friend in logistics.

/Ledger

Because the cloud has a subpoena and a sysadmin. A book has neither.

/Abuela_Diesel

Also she couldn't work a commlink past text. Her grandson set up her calendar and she called it "the machine that scolds me."

/Small_Talk

Thirty years of favors, all in one place, and the only person who could read it is now unavailable.

/RubyRose

ok LISTEN. i have it on good authority (a guy) that it's in a safe deposit box at a credit union on Halsted. the credit union has been closed since October. so either the box is sitting there or somebody's already been in and is sitting on it

/Ledger

Your authority is a guy. Which guy?

/RubyRose

A GUY, LEDGER. TALL. WITH TWO HANDS. TWO EYES. AND TWO EARS.

/Ledger

The credit union on Halsted was demolished in November. I have the permit.

/RubyRose

...the permit could be lying

/Ghost_Lake

Everyone's asking where the book is. Try asking what the book actually is.

I don't think it's a list of people she knew. Any decker can scrape that in a week. I think it's a list of who owed her. Every runner she found a job for, every corp bruiser she covered for, every cop she quietly kept out of the paper. The value isn't in the names, it's in the debts. Whoever holds it is the most powerful person in Bridgeport and doesn't have to do a thing to prove it.

So maybe the stroke was just a stroke. That's the part I can't shake. If it was a hit, we'd know who to blame. It's worse if she just died.

/Ledger

Speculation. Though I'll concede it's tidy.

/Abuela_Diesel

Marguerite has asked me to pass this along. She doesn't want the book. She does want to know who cleaned out the kitchen drawers between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, because whoever did it left the good scissors and took her sister's reading glasses. I find it off that the glasses were the only thing that was stolen.

/RubyRose

OK, SO, I went to Halsted. Asked around. The place was supposed to be demolished. neighbour swears it wasn't, instead, they built around the old building.

/Ledger

Adding RubyRose's account to the unconfirmed facts.

<7 posts have been removed>

/Quorum

The threat is being locked. Remember, this place is not a recruitment board for your quasilegal activities. I pulled commcodes of logs. I'll forward you each other's comms. Set up a meet. But don't bring it here.

I've also removed the posts, so the identity of anyone who is about to do a run is hidden. Nuked the logs as well. Be safe, chummers.