The Bounty Job That Went Wrong
A Black male concierge from the Continental Hotel approached Mooney Fisher and whispered, "Manager, there's a problem in the lobby."
Although she was speaking softly, those with sharp ears could still hear her. This was because Mooney Fisher didn't like people getting too close to her; if she wanted to lower her voice further, she had to get even closer.
The current volume and distance are the limits that this lady can tolerate, as tested by countless hotel concierges in Continental Hotel.
If you speak any softer, the lady won't hear you; if you get any closer, the flowerbed fertilizer will be used. Plants don't care whether the fertilizer tastes like chocolate or milk.
The downside is that it's difficult for the management of the Continental Hotel in Los Angeles to maintain secrecy; any hints will be noticed by nearby eavesdroppers. These people who "overhear" will then find themselves involuntarily drawn into the events they've heard about...
Therefore, it's difficult to say whether Mooney Fisher did this intentionally.
Henry was also one of the fish that took the bait. However, he wasn't a contract gunman; he was just a medical worker. So when they were arresting constables, the trouble usually didn't fall on him.
On the other hand, excluding the time he was locked in the basement, he's already been living in this world for three or four years. If he initially wanted to avoid trouble and live a truly carefree life, now he's gotten into the swing of things.
It's practically in my bones; if I don't go and see what's going on, I'll feel like I'm doing myself a disservice. Even just watching from afar, enjoying the show, is fine.
Hearing that something was wrong on her turf, Mooney couldn't continue pretending to be indifferent. She furrowed her delicate eyebrows slightly and asked, "What happened?"
"Is the problem with the bounty on that Tiger?"
"What could be wrong? The bounty hasn't been paid? Or is the Tiger dead?" Mooney Fisher asked as she lifted her leg and walked towards the lobby.
A few nosy individuals quietly followed, and Henry, seemingly casual, went along with the crowd. He also took the opportunity to ask a familiar face nearby who also loved excitement, "Dude, does the Continental Hotel do this kind of business? I thought they were all—"
Henry didn't say it explicitly, but he made a gun shape with his fingers, pressed it against his temple, and fired a shot.
The person being questioned replied, "How do you know what those rich people are thinking? As long as they're willing to pay the price, even if it's just dancing naked in the street, hotels won't care. They just want to post a bounty at a hotel, starting at least 100,000."
Okay. Continental Hotel are just intermediary platforms that use money as a dividing line; they don't care about things like offering rewards.
Henry thought to himself, "It seems I should check out the bounty list. Maybe I can take on some weird missions and earn some extra cash."
The Black concierge followed behind Ms. Fisher, explaining, "The bounty was deposited in full into the hotel's security deposit when it was posted. The bounty was paid out once the contractor was confirmed to have completed the task."
"The mission objective is to capture Tiger cubs under one year old, regardless of gender, which is no problem. The problem is that the person who issued the bounty is dead, and no one is claiming the Tiger..."
Munira asked in a loud voice, "Dead! How did he die? Who did it?"
"I heard he went to Africa to hunt buffalo, but was gored by a buffalo's horn. He didn't have time to get to a hospital and died from the infection."
... Eccentric people always have eccentric ways of dying, so it's not surprising. Don't assume that all rich people die peacefully in their sleep and have grand funerals; many of their deaths and funeral arrangements are unimaginable to ordinary people.
Has anyone ever heard of a patriarch of a prominent family whose body lay in state for over ten years after his death, unable to be buried?
But things still needed to be resolved, so Mooney asked, "What about the bounty hunter's family? Just send the Tiger over."
"The bounty hunter's family won't accept it. They don't demand the bounty be lifted or the reward be returned, but they also don't want the Tiger. They want us to do with it as we see fit."
This has happened before. Since the mission objective has already been achieved, the person who posted the bounty will only say they want to cancel the mission. The Continental Hotel will not obediently return the bounty; instead, they will pay it out.
Don't say that money talks. The missions offered by Continental Hotel are either life-threatening or extremely dangerous.
Those contract gunmen paid a huge price to complete a mission, only to be told when it was time to collect their reward that the mission was canceled and the bounty was forfeited. Guess who would go crazy?
Let a gun-wielding assassin go crazy, and who will be the one who suffers the most? Do they really think these people are just low-level drudges in an ordinary company, with no choice but to obey whatever the boss says? And what about that other group of powerful and influential people who think they're invincible?
After similar incidents occurred several times, the Continental Hotel learned whose side they should consider when such things happened.
Do they really think they can clean up this mess without any effort? Those self-important rich guys, they can be offended so easily, who would dare cause trouble for the hotel?
What If...? it's a bounty quest targeting a specific item, and the person who posted it cancels it, they won't accept the item, and of course, they won't refund the money. At most, they'll just dump the item in their warehouse. If it's valuable, they'll find another buyer.
But... the Tiger is alive! How can you just leave something like that in a warehouse? You can't exactly keep it as a pet in Continental Hotel.
Regardless, Tiger, as top predators on Earth, cannot be kept as pets. Even disregarding legality, the cost of a qualified keeper, enclosure, and feed is a significant expense.
Not to mention that California doesn't care about these things at all. As long as the animals don't harm people, there's no law to stop someone from turning their home into a zoo.
Alternatively, they might use cruel methods, confining the Tiger to a small cage and feeding it only small amounts of meat to keep it from starving until it succumbs to its own urges. Or perhaps they would simply euthanize it?
Mooney Fisher, who was encountering this situation for the first time, was already considering the classic practice of island nations across the ocean: sealing the barrel with cement and sinking it into the sea.
Upon entering the lobby, a group of people were gathered around something, chattering excitedly. As soon as the hotel manager, Mooney Fisher, approached, everyone instinctively parted to make way for her.
Sure enough, the creature being watched by the crowd was a tiger cub in a cage. Although it was described as a cub, it was actually larger than many adult small dogs and appeared to have been weaned, meaning it was at least two months old.
It's hard to say what the weight will be; dogs of similar size usually weigh around ten kilograms. This tiger cub will only be heavier, not lighter.
Most importantly, all animal cubs possess a certain alluring aura that captivates the viewer. At least, after Moonie locked eyes with this tiger cub, her initial thought of sinking into the sea through concrete vanished.
She asked, "Where is the person who brought this Tiger?"
The Black concierge asked the others, then awkwardly replied to his manager, "That man seems to have taken the bounty and run away."
"Walter! Who is he? Can we get him back?"
"It seems they're poachers from out of town who came to Los Angeles after hearing the news and accepted the bounty."
This left Mooney Fisher speechless. She was even more speechless when she looked into the cub's adorable eyes.