[Icelander]

The sort of thing I mean may be illustrated with the following example; where a Southie criminal by the name of Sean Callahan is telling two PCs what he has found out about a crew of Haitian drug dealers who threathen people with 'voodoo' paraphernalia and leave black rooster heads as calling cards.

Callahan comes back with news that this group is called 'Kók Nwar' or something similar, which translates to the Black Roosters. Apparently they are a criminal organisation from New Orleans who are carving out a position in Boston as distributors and importers of drugs as well as exacting some form of tribute in Haitian communities.

Callahan has warned the PCs that his source is perhaps not perfectly reliable, seeing as he is a superstitious and credulous drug addict, and that he may be exaggerating wildly when it comes to the power and reach of the gang. Callahan doesn't personally place much credence in the claim that 'everyone in New Orleans pays them tribute', for example.

Supposedly, they are led or at least fronted by someone called 'Prince J'. He has been in the city for close to half a year. Came from Lousiana with a crew of guys with him. Some names Callahan heard for his crew are Slim Williams and 'T-Dog', as well as a guy named Rene Goodwill, who appears to have been the enforcer for this group.

Even just a month ago, they weren't important enough for Callahan to have ever heard of them. Apparently, however, that has changed. A lot of new members have been arriving, both from Lousiana and direct from Haiti, and established drug dealing gangs who previously would not have dreamt of sharing their profits with some third-rate shakedown crew are now buying drugs exclusively from them and paying them tribute for the privilege of selling within 'their' territory.

Callahan is clearly shocked at such a rapid shift in the underworld balance of power of 'his' city and wonders at how it could have taken place without an all-out war. Callahan does mention that some of the established players did not intend to knuckle down under threats from some out-of-towners spreading superstition. Apparently, however, this did not go as intended:

"Lookit, yah boys know a shooter name of Abellard? 'Loup' Abellard, mostly worked New York and Philly, supposed to have put more people in the ground than cigarettes?

Well, as it happen, he's some sort of Haitian, same as these guys. Came up as a stick-up boy down in Florida in the 90s, ripping off cocaine cowboys [insert reference to specific criminals]. Never ran with a gang, but would step up to anyone, anytime. So he and [insert reference to Floridan gang] have a little disagreement, don't know what about.

Whatevah. Before you know, it's a warzone down there. Loup got himself an arsenal and he's having a field day hunting down these guys. They're falling over dead bodies in the street and [insert DTO] are lashing out at everyone trying to find this guy. No way to run a business, so finally, they get [respected underworld figure] to mediate. Hell, they get him to pay Loup off so they can get back to running drugs in whatever passes for peace down there.

Loup leaves Florida after that, around '96, but I don't know where he went. Maybe he tried to retire, maybe he went into business for his own, but in any case, he eventually ran out of money. I don't know what he spent it on, maybe he got a habit, maybe he likes wicked flash women, but whatevah, he found himself needing money to live in the style he had become accustomed. That's when he started accepting contracts.

He did work for [insert African-American OC in New York and Philly], the Dominicans [insert DTO], [insert DTO] and even the Italians [insert specifics]. Loup didn't care who he worked for and he didn't care who he killed. I think he enjoyed killing.

He did [insert names of victims] in Philly and [insert names in New York]. People with real security, but he found a way every time. Patient, resourceful and wicked crazy. The way people talk about him, he comes for you, there's no way to hide and no way to stop him. He'd use a handgun, knife, machete, long gun, anything that the job required and he'd never fail.

If he'd been smart, he'd never had to work again after some of these contracts, but Loup never could stop doing what he loved. He'd down Trinitarios street thugs in some retahded turf war just so he could keep sharp and then he'd turn up punching the ticket for someone like [insert famous gangland slaying].

Anyway, like I was saying earlier, these Kók Nwar jokers have been going around Mattapan and the Bury, telling everyone of Haitian-descent who was doing deals on the street they owed tax for doing business or 'Baron Kriminel' would come collect. Also selling their own product, wholesale, big packages, it seems. They seem wicked serious, too, for all their voodoo posturing.

I hear that just a couple of months after they got here, Rene Goodwill, the triggerman from New Orleans that Big Mike took care of last week, he gunned down a couple of Franklin Field boys who took offence at him collecting there on behalf of Prince J. Some stabbings and beatings, too. None of it really out of the ordinary, not until recently, though. I mean, we don't have that much contact with any of these gangs and who runs what corner doesn't matter to us.

There must have been some more attempts to drive them off and resist paying this tax, but there's a lot of talk and not much of it reliable. It sounds plausible that some Orchard Park bangers made a serious attempt to kill Prince J two months ago, but for whatevah reason it didn't go so well. Others tried and failed too. Seems this Prince J character has some mad pissah security watching over him, just waiting for a chance to cut loose.

Anyone who wanted him dead ended up disappeared instead; at least that's the way my informant tells it. Says local tough guys 'Nose' Anthony and 'Bandanna' Jones from Harbor Point were talking big about doing something about these Kók Nwar guys and they haven't been seen in months. Both used to run several crews and now their corners are being run by some new Haitian guys.

Terry Lucas, ran a tight crew on Blue Hill Avenue, got a solid head on him and a mean streak in him deep as the Big Dig, him too. He's just gone. Two of his guys turn up dead in the Mystic last month and he hasn't been seen since. They were shot and cut up, both, and from what I hear, had black rooster heads stuffed in their mouths. What's left of his crew is paying tribute to Kók Nwar; or so says my informant.

Clearly, drug dealing as a profession in black neighbourhoods is going tuh Chelsea in a black rooster-driven handcart. The jig gangs didn't just accept it lying down, though, even though they could see that guns and knives weren't going to work for them. Sometime last month, Sid 'Vicious' Edouard from JP, 'Fat Boy' Freddie Lavalle, the Roxbury dealer who came up through H Block, and some other guys who run profitable drug crews in the Bury, Jamaican Plains or Mattapan; they reached out to their Dominican suppliers in New York.

Now, that I may be able to get more information about that later tonight, an associate of mine will be meeting with some local representatives of the DDP and DFL who will know about any feelings that the importers down in New York have on this matter. Again, we don't have much contact with them, but it seems that these jokers are starting to have ambitions that affect anyone doing deals here in Boston.

Whatevah. So from what I hear, the result is that New York agrees to back the established drug dealers against these Kók Nwar people. Nobody up in New York cares much what gangs do in Bury, but muscling in on their drug connection to the local distributors is over the line.

So what happens is that our man Loup comes up here, two or three weeks ago, yeah? He's supposed to take out Prince J and however many others it takes to make these Kók Nwar guys see that nobody wants to pay them protection and Boston already has all the supply it needs, for the black gangs as well as everyone else. No need to run it up from Lousiana or Haiti or wherever they are getting their stuff. And sure as hell no one is going to stop buying from New York to deal exclusively with these jokers.

Here's the thing, though. Apparently, no one has seen stone psycho Loup Abellard since he went after Prince J. Just, yah know, two weeks ago, everyone expects to start hearing about how these Kók Nwar jokers are dying like flies, but instead, there's just the sound of silence. Prince J didn't even stop appearing in public and his boys Slim Williams, 'T-Dog' and the other lieutenants didn't stop collecting the tax neither.

Fat Boy Freddie disappeared around that time too and Vicious Edouard took a massive overdose of heroin in his apahtment, dead as doornail. Looked like he did it deliberate, too, says my source, maybe because he'd rather die happy than wait for 'Baron Kriminel' to come collect. My informant says that the rest of the black gangs in the Dot, Bury and Mattapan have taken their re-up from Kók Nwar and are all paying their tribute like good boys.

And there's a new enforcer for Kók Nwar, too. Some joker dressing in a black suit and top-hat, wearing sunglasses at night, actually calling himself 'Baron Kriminel'. He's got a whole fresh crew of soldiers too, at least one of whom is straight off the boat from Haiti and doesn't even speak English. Wicked crazy machete-wielding bastahd, said to be. Every bloody man of color scared stiff of this Baron Kriminel and his Haitian thugs now.

Now, what can I add for the blanks in the story?