Luz's crimes

Camilla was sitting at the table looking at her books like they were about to reveal the secrets of the multiverse to her. She was so engrossed in accounting that she missed Luz and Vee coming back from school.

“Hi, mom.”

“Hola mama.”

“Gah!”

Camilla was so startled that she knocked some of her papers off the table. Vee and Luz quickly went over to help her pick them all up.

“Sorry about that. What are you working on?”

Camilla just sighed. “I was going over the money you need to launder. There is so much that it is almost impossible to get into our accounts without anyone noticing. I hate saying this, but I think we need to start another legitimate business or two to make this work.”

Luz and Vee just stared at her in shock. “Mom? Are you feeling all right?”

“Not really, but as much as I wish otherwise, you were right. There are 7 people in this house and only one provider. Getting another legitimate revenue stream would make everything easier.”

Luz just smiled and wrapped her mom in a hug.

“I’m sorry about this mom. I know this isn’t remotely what you wanted for me.”

“It’s ok Luz. At least this is all for a good cause.” She then backed up and got to eye level with Luz. “But I am not changing the rule about only doing crimes on the approved list. OK?”

Luz just nodded. “Ok. What kind of business were you thinking about?”

“I’m not sure. There aren’t that many businesses that aren’t already in the area, are profitable, wouldn’t attract unwanted attention, and that you could do.”

“Hay, you would be surprised at what we could do. What ideas do you have already?”

Camilla then picked up a list and handed it to Luz. She then started to look down at it, seriously considering each item on it before moving on to the next one. Eventually, she reached the end and lowered it.

“I see what you mean. The most realistic one would be the Dominican restaurant, but we don’t have enough people good at Dominican cooking to make that realistic.”

Vee looked offended at that. “Hay, I’ll have you know that I am great at cooking.”

Camilla gave her a concerned look. “Maybe in a family setting, but how about the high-stress environment of a restaurant kitchen?”

She deflated at that. “Ok, that’s fair. And the others would probably try and get involved as well.”

All three of them grimaced at the idea of any of the other kids cooking.

“I love my girlfriend, but her last pie wasn’t safe for anything on Earth to eat.”

“Things from the Boiling Isles would also have trouble eating it.”

Luz and Camilla just nodded at that. “Any other ideas?”

“How about-“

SLAM

“LUZ!”

Amity slammed open the front door in distress, looking like she was about to cry as she rushed to her girlfriend’s arms.

“Amity? What happened?”

She began to sniffle as she tried to answer.

“Th- Th- They are- There-.”

“Deep breaths Amity. Let's calm down before you try answering again, ok?”

Amity nodded and began to take several deep breaths before continuing again.

“They’re closing the bookstore!”

“WHAT! WHY?”

Now Luz was the upset one clinging to her girlfriend.

“The owner said they were getting on in years and wanted to move to Florida.”

“This is terrible!”

“Maybe not?’

At that, everyone in the room turned to look at Camilla with shock in their eyes. (except for Amity, she had shock and murder in her eyes.)

“Camilla, I’m giving you too the count of 5 to explain what you mean before Luz louses her Mothe.”

She began to wave her hands in front of her. “We were just discussing getting another ligament business to do money laundering, and this might do it.”

Amity calmed down at that, but she was still looking at her funny.

“Nice idea Vee, but there are several problems with that. The biggest of which is that bookstores aren’t the kind of places that are useful for money laundering. What you want for a money laundering business is something that makes large amounts of money without you needing to explain to anyone where it is coming from. Places that offer services like shows, barber shops, massage parlors, and the like work great because you can easily say that more people are coming than usual without you having to worry about messing with the books too much.

“Places that sell goods need to also fudge their inventory records, otherwise people will wonder why they are saying they sold double the amount of stuff they are ordering. That is why places like bars, laundromats, restaurants, and the like will throw out things they order to make sure their records all match. You also need to focus on how much you are spending on the disposed of goods compared to the amount you are selling them, which is why businesses with a high markup like bars or nightclubs are great.

“Either way, you need to explain how large numbers of people go to it. If a nightclub says they are serving 5 drinks to 100 people each night, no one would bat an eye. If a computer repair shop said 100 people came each day, people would question. Especially if it's one in this town.

“Bookstores don’t get that much traction nowadays, and even then the markup we would put on it wouldn’t be enough to justify using it for that. The only benefit we gain for that would be owning a bookstore just to own it.”

Camilla, Luz, and Vee were all staring at her at the end.

“That was so hot.”

“LUZ!”

Luz began to blush under the combined stares of her sister, mother, and girlfriend.

“Hay, is it my fault that she is so lovable when she gets nerdy?”

“Putting that to the side for now, how do you know so much about his Amity?”

“Do you know how much money laundering Odalia did to cover the illegal weapons sales?”

Camilla just blinked before sighing.

“OK, two things. One, you can add ‘murder Odalia’ to the list of the approved crimes.”

In the Archive House

Odalia was pulling out a baking sheet filled with pizza beagles when she felt a wave of malice so strong wash over her that she dropped them. She then looked around quickly in a panic before the Collector floated over to her.

“What is it Mamadalia?”

She looked over to the Collector with fear in her eyes before smothering it in self-confidence once again.

“It’s nothing. I just thought I heard something.”

The Collector just shrugged. “Oh, that’s fine. For a moment I thought that the wave of malice and hatred was directed at you. Nice to know that it wasn't my favorite maid that was about to be tortured and murdered gruesomely.”

Odalia just stared at them for several seconds before the Collector snapped their fingers and made the pizza beagles float up and place themselves on a plate.

“Don’t worry, it came from another dimension. It will be a while before the ones that sent it could come here. When they do, the best thing to do would be to just hand over the puppet they want and watch them work. It’s always fun to watch toys get smashed to pieces and used as firewood.”

He then floated over to the dining room holding the pizza beagles, leaving an Odalia that was for once in her life, praying to something that wasn’t money or power-related.

Noceda resident

“Yay! Do you want to help me draw up a murder plan for her Luz?”

She just shrugged. “Sure, why not? Belos is dead and there isn’t anyone else I want to murder. This would be a nice outlet for the pent-up rage and hatred I have to an acceptable outlet. I know Willow will want to join, so how about asking Hunter?”

“Hold up kids.”

Both Luz and Amity turned to look at Camilla, whose face held barely concealed horror at two of her kids talking about who to invite to plan a murder with no concern for how messed up they sound.

“Before you start doing anything along those lines, how about we talk about how the bookstore could be used to launder money.”

“OK, what’s your idea, Camilla?”

She sat down at her laptop and began to pull up the website for the bookstore.

“Did you know that ‘The Novel Store’ does more than just sell books?”

“Sure. They also sell DVDs, CDs, audiobooks, and some tabletop game supplies. None of those work well with money laundering except for the dice.”

“Maybe, but how about the large basement that is rented out for people to do activities in?”

At that everyone’s eyes lit up.

“How much?”

“$10 an hour while the store is open to the public, and $15 for the hour after it is closed before it also gets shut down. 2 hours before it opens and 3 hours after it closes if on Sunday.”

“OK, the store is opened 9 to 9, except for 11 to 7 on Sunday. If we write it down as always rented out along with actually renting it out, that could net us an extra $965 a week. Not much, but it would help out.”

At that, Camilla started to smile. “It gets better than that, Fridays are the DND night with a $5 entry fee. If you make up other events with similar fees, you can probably add in another $100 a day.”

Vee began to smile at that. “I just got an idea. The gambling hall is thinking of closing due to the cops getting too close. We can offer to host them and say we are taking an entry fee from them while saying it's something else, like a ‘improve the town” club”

Camilla’s eyes shot open in shock at that. “WHAT! Where did you hear that?”

“I subbed for Gus at rigging the games in your favor the week before last. The organizer said this when I dropped off that night's proceeds from my table.”

“Great, there goes my weekend poker game.”

“What do you mean? It would make sure you could keep doing it.”

Camilla just shot Amity a look. “Let me put it like this. Would you play poker with someone who owns the casino? Especially if they kept having lucky breaks week after week?”

“How about you be the dealer for them?”

Camilla came up short at that. “Ok, that could work. But no more rigging the games.”

“WHY? If we were hosting it, it would be even easier to rig the games. A few well-placed illusions and we could have Palismens looking at the cards of every player to feed the info to our dealers. Willow could rig the roulette wheel with her plants to make sure it lands where we want. I have also been working on using my Abominatio goo to make die so that I can control how they roll. Sports betting is still beyond us unless the game is close enough for us to fly there-“

“Amity Blight! There is no way you are rigging professional games to rig betting!”

“How about just to make sure your team wins?”

…

“Ok, only messing with real football so New England Revolution or the Dominican Republic national Football team win, ok?”

“What about the Patriots?”

At that everyone in the room froze and turned to look at Gus, who had just spoken after walking into the room to get something out of the fridge.

“What did you say?”

“You were talking about football, so why not help the Patriots? Or are you more of a college football person?”

At that, both Luz and Vee grabbed Amity’s arms and started to drag her out of the room as quickly as they could.

“Why are we leaving?”

“Rule one of sports, NEVER Mix up Football and American Football. Especially around fanatics like my mom.”

As the three of them left the house, they could hear the beginnings of Camilla explaining in excruciating detail how they were different and why Football was vastly superior to American Football.