Chapter Text
Alta Street Apartment peasants. It felt like everyday there were more of them standing around outside of the tower. Yammering about their grind for that day. As if it were different from any other day of the week. Their assets fees are coming up. Loans past due. The daily grind encompassed every aspect of their lives.
Today was an exceptionally busy day. Almost all of the international flights came into the city on the same day. It meant folk moving-in from all other the world. From Los Santos’ sister cities to just about anywhere on the globe. Foot traffic doubled around the parking garage and in the lots around the back. New faces as far as the eye could see.
It meant Dundee had to weave his way around the ever growing crowd to get to his own apartment. People never cared who was trying to get through the crowd. Their groups stayed tightly knit blockades as the angry Australian pushed himself through them. Purposely going out of his own way to walk in front of people as they spoke to each other.
“Out the way, peasants! Rich man coming through!”
His voice carried across the block. Drawing their attention to him, eyes following him as he ran into the main building. Elevators dinged around him. People coming up and down in what felt like droves. Part of Dundee felt as though it was already a tsunami. Or there was a citywide headpop. Neither were ideal for moving large amounts of cash in his pockets.
Dundee pushed himself into an elevator going up. He selected his own floor number, the button lighting up at his touch. Then he selected five more in the vague shape of a penis after his own floor. Thankfully, no one had needed to get off on his floor. Nor did they realize his button penis would be extending their trip up by seconds, if not minutes.
He snickered to himself as the elevator closed behind him. Pulling out his keys to his door that thankfully was so close to the lifts he could lick the handle while stepping out. Dundee didn’t recall the last time he had been to his apartment. There’s so much risk coming here. One wrong step and this apartment was the PD’s first target for a raid. It was, however, a risk he’d need to take to keep this 50k secured. The club couldn’t know about it. Not yet, anyway.
They’d know when he came back with millions of dollars after winning this stupid whatever game he was invited to play. A smile crept on his face as he let himself inside. Wasting no time in pulling the briefcases from his pockets and shoving them to the bottom of his storage. Right under a small stack of Rooster’s Rest boxes filled to the brim with notes saying ‘Fuck you’. It’s the little things you need to appreciate in life.
“You, my little friend, are going to get me and my club up good,” he praised the briefcases as they disappeared from view under all his random junk. This was the chance of a lifetime. When else would someone offer up so much for so little? With banks as they were currently, the games were his way back to being the big money maker for the BBMC. It was an opportunity he wasn’t going to waste.
He’d actually be useful again.
Dundee pushed the top of the storage down. Using all his weight to weigh down the top. He’d have to think about removing some of the ‘fuck you’s out of his Rooster’s Rest boxes. Maybe switch them out for some Murder Meals. Their boxes fit together better.
He took a step back from his storage to check his work. It closed so it worked. It looked about ready to burst. Then again, what did he care about? He didn’t leave here anymore. Wouldn’t care too much if he did anyway. Before he headed out, he took a short side trip to his closet. Switching out his old, ragged blue track jacket for his pink one. His hat covering up his scarred, bald head.
With no other business in his old place, the pink man headed out. He locked the door behind him and prepared himself for another elevator trip full of grinders and peasants. Crowds seem to have thinned since his short trip inside. Elevator not packed to the brim. Not a good time to risk his button penis again. He’d save it for another time.
As he stepped out, Dundee pushed aside a Burger Shot employee. Or, at least, someone in a Burger Shot mask. These days it wasn’t so obvious if it was a bank buster or a burger flipper. Or both. That seems to be a thing now.
Damn civilians.
Two other Burger Shot employees enter the building as he is leaving. His eyes scanned the front of the apartments immediately. His Tulip dutifully waited for him right where he left her.
“Oh, you’re in luck. Dundee’s right there.”
He froze as he heard his name. The voice wasn’t familiar, but he knew so many people in this city. Without a thought, he spun in place to find whoever it was. He liked to personalize his donor walls.
She wasn’t a woman he remembered off hand. No work shirt, no gang vest. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said she was new to the city. Now that he saw her face coupled with her voice though, she might have been an EMS. God knows he’s familiar enough with them to be recognized. Her red hair stuck out to him. Perhaps she was the one he’d recited his dirty poem to?
He noticed she had pointed to someone else behind her. Dundee followed her hand to the older man behind. His ugly, half gone mullet shined in the sun. Old, dirty, raggedy clothes hanging off him like cobwebs. The man looked like shit personified then beat with an ugly stick down into the trash bin and rotted inside for a month.
Bile immediately built up in the back of his throat. Blood ran ice cold in his veins. She stepped aside to show the old man off in full. Her eyes bright, hands clasped together eagerly.
“...Dad?”
There before him was the bastard, Bob Dundee. Unfortunately still alive after all these years. He had aged poorly. It didn’t speak of a graceful aging process for his son either.
“You little son of a bitch.”
Dundee froze. Her smile faded. Everything around them slowed down to a crawl.
Bob was inches in front of Dundee in seconds. Or minutes. Time didn’t seem real. Everything felt cold. Where the hell was the crowd so thick he had to move around the ocean of bodies to move an inch? Where were the nosey nancys trying to get the latest gossip?
“Uh…” she finally spoke up. Her southern accent was a dull hum of background noise. “Did I-”
His father’s fist knocks him out of his stupor. Dundee stumbled back two steps from his blow.
“Is this where you’ve been fucking hiding out, you little piece of shit?” Bob stomped closer to his son. He grabbed the front of his pink jacket in a tight fist. Dundee jerked forward as he was pulled down towards his father’s face. Bob smelled of old Pall Malls and whiskey. A new brand of cigarettes too. Dundee could distinctly remember the smell of his old one. This wasn’t it.
“I’ve been trying to find you for a goddamn year and here I find you in a shitsplat apartment building in the middle of a used condom of a fucking city?”
Dundee feels his jaw. He tenderly rubbed the sore spot on his chin. His beard tangled around his prodding fingers. Those used to hurt more than that.
Bob flips the brim of his hat. His hood and hat flipped backwards off his hairless head. It was cold out today. Sunny and freezing cold.
“You listening to me, dipshit? I want to know where my fucking daughter is.”
Dundee blinked. Noise filled his ears. Inane chatter of the people around the apartments. Were they always there? “I don’t really care about anything you have to say you old fuck. I don’t know where Shazza is, and frankly, I wouldn’t say if I did. Now fuck off.”
The other man yanked the front of his son’s shirt again. “You took my other child from me. Did you fucking take her too, you waste of space?”
Words died on Dundee’s lips. Get the fuck away from me. Go die in a pit you old bastard. Do something useful for once in your life and fertilize some daisies. His mouth opened to let his tirad out. Instead, his jaw snapped shut in an instant. Clamped tight enough his teeth started to hurt.
Apartment crowds had begun to grow curious. Foot traffic diverted from their destination to observe the pair of men on the sidewalk. One woman had taken out her phone to record them. The redheaded EMS had taken out her radio. Kept close to her heart, button at the ready.
So many eyes were there to witness. Too many. Bob’s grip loosened on his son’s shirt. Letting him take a few more steps backwards from him. The crowd was waiting. It was human nature to want to see tragedies unfold. He cleared his throat, straightening himself up.
“This isn’t over. You took my family from me. And you aren’t getting away with that.” The old man turned from his son and the strangers that threatened to suffocate them. Dundee lost sight of him as soon as he pushed past them in a huff.
Most started to disperse. Disappointment hung over the randoms as they dispersed. Only a few were left behind. They started to talk among themselves about whatever was important in their lives. Probably fishing.
Dundee brushed his coat off and blindly reached for his hat. It was too cold in the city to leave it rest, tangled in his flipped hood.
“I’m sorry,” he heard to his right. He turned towards the southern accent in a snap. Body tensed, ready for fight or flight. The redhead’s hand held a deathgrip on her radio. “I didn’t-” She didn’t know. Who could have? “I’m sorry. I thought...did you...?”
His tension snaps. “You shouldn’t have thought, you should have minded your own fucking business!” The Australian bunched his fists and screamed at the woman. She violently flinched. His chest puffed out. That’s more like it. “Fucking asshole.”
He didn’t wait to watch her reaction, sweet as it may have been. There were people waiting for him. It didn’t take this long to drop off something and return to the Billabong.
Collin might start to get suspicious. Damn man was too much of a detective sometimes. Besides, what did he care that his old man was in town? Surely this was a stop on a binge. He wouldn’t last a week in the city. Dundee wouldn’t let it bother him. There was meth that needed to be pushed. Work to be done. This was the last time he’d see Bob Dundee, clearly. Hopefully.
Maybe luck can be on his side this one time.