Chapter 1505: Bar, Toxic, and Center Position
It was about 50 kilometers northeast of D.C..
This had once been the third largest city in the United States, and had the earliest railways and excellent ports. It had been an important s.h.i.+pping hub for the Great Lakes region.
But that was a long time ago.
Now, Baltimore had become a lot more chaotic.
A lot of the middle cla.s.s and the rich who had first lived here chose to leave.
The ones who remained moved to another region, leaving the original district to the poor.
Just like that, the entire city was split into two.
One half was the rich and middle-cla.s.s people who lived in new areas with good public security and facilities.
Most of the old districts, on the other hand, were full of crime.
In terms of crime rate, even Chicago and Detroit had to concede defeat.
It was only because there were less than a million people in Baltimore that it hadn’t been able to claim the crown of “Crime City” in America.
Even so, one could imagine how chaotic Old Town was.
However, it had strategic land and water routes, and it was only about 150 kilometers to Philadelphia in the north, and just over 300 kilometers to New York.
Chaos meant that a lot of places weren’t under control, and the convenient land and water networks meant that large quant.i.ties of illegal drugs could be transported out via cars, trains and boats.
Luke entered Old Town at night.
A moment later, he came out of an alley after switching to an African-American alias.
It belonged to a certain New York drug dealer. The original owner of the ident.i.ty had become experience and credit points in the system a few months ago. It was a disposable ident.i.ty that wouldn’t cause a fuss.
The most distinctive traits of this drug dealer were his fierce appearance and st.u.r.dy body. He was a little similar to Mike Tyson in Luke’s previous life, which was why Luke had kept this ident.i.ty.
Now that Luke was in Old Town, many people only gave him a few looks before they stopped paying attention.
A brawny African-American man in an ordinary gray hoodie and with his hands still in his pockets wasn’t a suitable target for a robbery.
If someone really tried it, it would be hard to say which party would actually do the robbing.
Just like that, Luke walked into a bar not far away.
Most of the neon lights that formed the bar’s name were broken. There was only a ‘J’ followed by a ‘Br’ at the back, and an ‘a’ could be faintly seen in the middle.
Two African-American men who were smoking on the side glanced at Luke before they ignored him.
Luke pushed the door open and entered.
A hallway seven to eight meters long appeared before him. The brick red walls and the dim lighting made it look dull and oppressive.
At the end of the hallway was another door, behind which was the faint sound of a low ba.s.s and singing.
Opening the second door, music poured out.
After scanning the lounge for a moment, Luke walked over to the bar counter and tapped on it with his finger. “A bottle of beer.”
The bartender gave him a bottle of beer, took the money, then proceeded to ignore Luke.
Luke turned around and looked at the stage in the middle of the lounge.
It was a circular stage with four “runways” that stretched out in the shape of a cross. Two women were dancing on the stage.
One was white, and the other was African-American. Their clothes were incredibly skimpy and they had magnificent chests.
Many people whistled and waved cash from time to time to tempt the women to draw closer.
The two dancers cleverly used their movements to put themselves in a position where they could take the money without being pulled down.
They absolutely had to avoid such a dangerous situation when dancing here.
The consequence of being pulled off the stage could be anywhere from a badly battered face to a disastrous death.
The bar owner was intimidating enough, but these stupid drunkards would do whatever they wanted when they were high.
Although Luke was facing the stage, his gaze was focused on the virtual projection on his lenses.
A large number of mini drones began to investigate the bar. They quietly flew in through cracks and searched all the hidden areas of the building.
At the same time, Luke eavesdropped on the people around him.
He directly ignored most of them who were here to have fun. What he paid attention to were those who were behaving strangely.
For example, the two men huddled together and saying things like “tomorrow’s goods” and “25,000.”
Every now and then, hoodlums would go in and out a small door that was guarded. Occasionally, they would run to the stage or the bar with the money they had just gotten to spend it.
But these small fry weren’t Luke’s targets.
Until he caught the big fish, he wouldn’t pay attention to them.
Suddenly, the music stopped, and the two sweaty dancers returned to the central stage with cash tucked into their skimpy outfits.
Standing in the middle, the women blew kisses around them as the stage slowly sank down.
Without the music, all sorts of noises rang out.
There were whistles, curses, shouts and conversation.
Some people also used the time to go to the bathroom, drink or shoot up drugs, or grope each other.
This was a break, and the prelude to the next act.
Luke had found his target.
In a VIP booth, one person called out “boss,” and another called out “Boss Lamar.”
Ironfist Lamar was the big boss of this bar.
At the same time, he was Claudia’s “big client.”
In the past two years, Claudia had provided him with five tons of goods, and Hodge had come several times to deliver the goods.
It was very rare in drug deals that the money was paid first and the goods delivered later or vice-versa.
Thus, Luke focused on Lamar.
Even if he couldn’t find anyone behind Lamar, he would still earn a lot of experience and credit points.
Now that he had found his target, he could only wait.
To avoid alerting Lamar, Luke didn’t plan to take him down right away, but to learn some information first.
At that moment, music rang out in the bar once more as an EDM song called “Toxic” played: “Baby, can’t you see I’m calling? A guy like you should wear a warning…”
Three dancers wearing skimpy blue flight steward uniforms rose up on the round stage.
Just then, Luke took a quick glance as he raised the beer in his hand, only to see the woman in the center sashay forward.
Pu!
He spat out his beer.
The bartender glanced at him, but seeing Luke just spit out some beer before putting the bottle back on the counter, he didn’t say anything..