Chapter 683: Site Selection
“Boss, this one also went out tonight.”
After leaving little Owen’s house, Wayne then went to the two addresses Ryan Aubern had mentioned, but unfortunately, neither of them was home.
After O'Sullivan’s stunt, fewer members of the Ireland Violent Group went to the Police Station to cooperate with the investigation. It felt like their internal command chain was completely intact, and the entire gang still seemed “full of vitality.”
After Sanders, who had gone to knock on doors to scout, finished speaking, he tried to offer Wayne advice: “I heard that the Sailor Gang members have been released in batches. Do you need me to drive the carriage over?”
Wayne shook his head: “My assigned area tonight is around the Ireland community. It’s too far to deviate. Let’s patrol around here and find out which teams are closest. We’ll go check on their situations.”
The situation of that high-level Extraordinary Person was still unclear, so the Agents were naturally a bit apprehensive. It was better for the Partner to show his face more often in front of them right now.
The Sailor Gang’s lair was in the area Inessa was primarily responsible for. With so many of them dead today, Merlin would probably also go to them to understand the situation. There wasn’t much point in him going over now; it was better to wait until they met tomorrow morning and directly ask for the results.
There were actually many things Agents had to do while patrolling. Besides rushing to the scene in time when something unusual was discovered, confirming the situation, rescuing innocent people, and arresting perpetrators, most of the time they just walked around and observed.
They would check suspicious people for illegally carried firearms and advise ordinary people walking the streets at night to go home as soon as possible and not to wander aimlessly.
Some people’s active hours are naturally at night. In the Dock Area, besides manual laborers, there are many black market dealers, petty thieves, and fast-food girls. For these people, persuasion is almost useless.
There are also some bold individuals who consider going to bars or strange places for entertainment at night a necessity. And sailors and boatmen who briefly dock in the Dock Area for rest are generally outsiders. They spend most of the year cooped up on ships, so when they finally get ashore, they naturally want to eat, drink, and have fun, not caring about the trivialities of the Dock Area.
The Detective Agency actually didn't bother to manage too much. Everyone has their dreams and their own Wonderful. Those who don't listen to advice shouldn't expect to scold Agents like police officers when something happens. There were even drunkards who were forcibly taken back to sober up or reflect because of their foul mouths.
Fortunately, after several consecutive days, the street presence of the public in the Dock Area, especially in the Ireland community, has at least visibly decreased.
On the first night, when they all came out in a rage, even Wayne was a little worried about losing control of the situation.
Last night’s shootings sounded more dangerous, but because they were handled promptly, residents in nearby homes mostly lit lamps and looked out their windows. Seeing that the situation was being managed, they weren’t as agitated, and wouldn’t casually call neighbors to bring weapons and go out together.
Wayne felt this trend was quite good. When the Ireland Violent Group shouted aimlessly in the streets and no citizens responded to their provocations to help, then they would be completely finished.
It wouldn’t just be a change of gangs, but a more thorough eradication.
The Ireland Violent Group’s control over their community was very thorough, but a side effect of this situation was that the gang ecosystem here was actually simpler than in other parts of the Dock Area.
When other Ireland people feel that gang matters have nothing to do with them, they will be like a small-town Sheriff who has lost the hearts of the people, only one “election” away from losing their position.
However, it’s probably not possible to achieve this yet. The inertia of public thinking is often stronger than imagined.
While considering the issue of gang governance, Wayne also pondered the hiring problem for the cannery, wondering what standard to set for wages. Too high and he’d lose money, too low and it wouldn’t be attractive. He decided to hand it over to the intelligence team and Seth to research later.
After meeting with two groups of patrolling Agents, Wayne maintained the image of a “good boss who takes the lead,” then continued to find the next group to show his face, encouraging them to work hard.
Along the way, he also had Sanders run to several key points on the map, both to confirm the nighttime conditions of the cannery’s prospective locations and to see if he could find any clues about that high-level Extraordinary Person.
This involved the issue of sewers.
The development of towns and cities in the America Federation varies. Due to the occasional outbreaks of cholera and other plagues, some large cities had long noticed the problem of urban sewage, and the core areas had already initially dug out a sewer network.
Although it was still far from comparable to Londan City in the Windsor Kingdom—where large-scale sewer construction had already begun gradually when the America Federation was just established, and now the pipeline network almost covers the entire city. Newspapers say the Windsor Kingdom Parliament recently discussed completely upgrading Londan’s sewers into a “world-class modern project” that would last forever, with a planned total length of nearly 2000 kilometers when converted, and the largest main pipe diameter planned to be nearly 3 meters, so tall that a person standing inside couldn’t touch the top.
But some large cities in America, in this era, also gradually possessed primary large sewers, at least enough to comfort themselves by saying “it’s enough, we don’t compare ourselves to others.”
Richmond was theoretically a large city, but because the wealthy in the South preferred estates or Plantations and didn’t like living in the city, the municipal investment in this area wasn’t very active. So, currently, there were only two or three sewers that could hide people.
Wayne was both worried about whether that high-level Extraordinary Person would transform into some strange form and hide inside, and also concerned about the water quality for the cannery. Sewers in this era only discharged sewage and didn’t treat it at all. Who knew what the peak discharge period would do to the potentially affected small rivers? He needed to choose a river located relatively upstream, and whose water was drinkable day and night.
These locations were slightly outside the Ireland community, but not too far, so taking a quick look wouldn’t delay anything. He’d check them out and then return.
The locations Wayne had chosen were all relatively secluded, not between the “work areas” like the docks and residential areas. They were plots of land that most people wouldn’t pass by, and even if they did, they wouldn’t go too deep inside. Thieves and prostitutes didn’t pick these spots; at most, some black market dealers would trade nearby.
So when he encountered a guy on the road, he didn’t pay much attention at first. He just had Sanders drive the carriage closer to give the other party a slight reminder, intending to tell him that the Dock Area wasn’t peaceful lately and that he shouldn’t wander around at night if he had nothing to do.
The average nutritional level in America in this era was just so-so. Those who ate well as children might reach 1.7 or 1.8 meters, while those who lived in hardship were often 1.5 or 1.6 meters. Especially with many illegal immigrants in the Dock Area, the poor in some Old Continent countries ate even worse, and good genes would be hindered by malnutrition.
From a distance in the carriage, Wayne glanced at the person with his simplified vision, seeing that he was thin and small, even among the poor, quite petite. His movements were also somewhat timid and furtive, like a pitiful wretch who was bullied all the time.
He probably wasn’t even a proper gang member, at most involved in some illegal transactions or petty theft.
The carriage stopped, and Sanders probably showed off the Red Armbands on his arm: “It’s so late, what are you doing here?”
“I just came out of the bar and am about to go home.” The other party lowered his head, hunched his back, and shrank his chest, looking even more timid.
Sanders now jumped out of the carriage, a head taller than the other party, and then followed some routine questions and admonitions.
Passersby’s answers at night were generally untrustworthy. Some unscrupulous merchants and petty thieves would make up any lies, but Wayne felt that nothing serious would happen, so he slightly withdrew his gaze.
Sanders probably thought the same, gradually relaxing his body, until he asked the other person’s address, and then the other person pointed in the direction of the Ireland community, so timid that he didn’t even dare to raise his arm high.
“Cá bhfuil tú i do chónaí?” This phrase means asking for the other party’s address. To deal with other gang members trying to bluff their way through, the Detective Agency had also crammed some simple Ireland spoken language these past two days, and Sanders had been seizing every opportunity to practice on people.
“…” The other person’s mouth was half-open, unable to answer.
Then, his spiritual intuition suddenly gave a warning, and Wayne then saw the other person’s physique quickly enlarge by a whole circle, transforming into him looking down at Sanders with a slight bow.
This height and build, and clearly an Extraordinary Person…
What the hell?
I didn’t expect to win the lottery myself?
