While Luke was leisurely cooking and looking up information, Caron was reporting to Winston: "… Two smiling men appeared last night. According to the survivor, the first one was just a bait, and the second one was the target of the order."
Winston said nothing, but took a sip of his coffee.
"Based on the survivors' statements, the strength of the bait and the target are both legendary, and..." Caron paused subconsciously at this point, and then said the second half of the sentence: "Also, the target of the order is likely to be a person with super powers."
Winston's eyes flickered and he slowly put down his coffee cup.
Seeing this, Caron continued to explain: "The target's specific capabilities are unknown, but without reloading, his two revolvers fired at least sixty rounds of bullets."
Winston finally turned his head and asked: "Is there any detailed analysis of this superpower?"
Caron shook his head. "Not yet. Apart from this one peculiarity, he didn't reveal anything else that was too weird. Whether it's movement speed, shooting speed, or strength, none of them exceeded our alert value."
Winston sighed. "Anything else?"
He wasn't very interested in listening any further.
Although the current news is not too bad, it does not mean that the situation is not serious.
When bad luck strikes, most people are paralyzed by their opponents and lose before they can react.
Therefore, this kind of no news does not mean good news.
Caron thought about it and said, "We found a statue in the Quagmire Park. It should be left by the Smiling Man."
Winston frowned.
Caron: "We have already transported it back to the inspection room and conducted multiple tests overnight. No problems have been found so far."
Winston finally spoke: "Are you sure he stayed here?"
Caron: "We checked carefully and found that there was no black marble statue on the lakeside before last night. According to the survivors, they were annihilated there..."
Winston looked up at him.
Caron: "Besides, the statue is the image of a smiling man, and maybe his signature is on it."
Winston: "…Where is it?"
Caron: "It's in the truck in the parking lot. It hasn't been unloaded yet."
Winston: "Send it to the basement. I'll check it out later."
Caron: “Yes, sir.”
More than ten minutes later, in the spacious basement hall, Winston walked slowly around the black statue, his initial fixed gaze turning into a thoughtful look.
Caron stood quietly by the side without saying a word.
After a long while, Winston looked at the words on the base and murmured: "Under the mask, there is more than just flesh and blood. It is a belief, and belief is invulnerable?"
After a moment's silence, he chuckled and shook his head, then turned and walked away, followed by Caron.
When they reached the basement door, Winston stopped and suddenly said, "Change the name of this Mr. Smiley Man."
Caron: What do you mean
Winston: "Didn't he leave his name and tell us how many people he killed?"
Caron: “v?”
Winston half turned around, looked at the statue again, and smiled. "That's it. Send this name to the High Table and let them worry about it."
The two returned to Winston's room, and Caron continued to talk about some of the things he had not finished saying just now: "Damico's wife is dead. When our investigators arrived at the house, they found that she had been dead for less than two hours."
The sneer on Winston's face became even more intense, but he said nothing. He just leaned comfortably against the back of the sofa.
Caron knew that this meant that he had to listen carefully, so he continued to explain: "But from the bodyguards around her, we confirmed that she chose to increase the reward after receiving a phone call, and there is also this."
He placed a photo of the file in his hand on the coffee table beside Winston. "She wrote down these names while she was on the phone."
When Winston saw the three names "Smiling Man, Black Cat, Black Mask", he was not surprised at all: "Who is calling?"
Caron shook his head: "This guy is very clean. Except for D'Amico's wife who talked to him on the phone, no one else knew about it."
Winston was not too surprised.
Caron: "But, we found something over at the Quagmire Park."
Winston: "Tell me."
Caron put another photo on the coffee table. "We checked and found that the scene was cleaned up quite well. If it weren't for the survivors' explanation, we would hardly have known that a fierce battle had taken place there."
Winston understood that it would not be easy to clean up all traces of a battle between more than a hundred people, especially since more than a hundred corpses would not disappear out of thin air.
Caron: "Then we found this suspicious van. Comparing the surveillance footage from the afternoon, there was one less vehicle in the park. And this vehicle had only been driven to the Quagmire Park parking lot yesterday morning."
Winston looked at the person in the photo and took a sip of black tea: "Is this the driver?"
Caron nodded: "Yes."
"Found him?" asked Winston.
Caron shook his head. "According to our investigation, this person disappeared a week ago. No one knows where he went. He only showed up yesterday to rent a car and drive to Quagmire Park. According to our intelligence, this person should be Jin Bing's secret henchman. Even the boss of his gang doesn't know about this."
Winston narrowed his eyes and stopped drinking the cup of tea in his hand.
The name Jin Bing is really familiar to him.
Although the two sides have been living in peace for a long time, Winston still remembers the earlier conflict.
It is difficult for Jin Bing and Continental Hotel to become friends. In the end, one side will be promoted while the other side will fall or submit.
In this rare incident of a group of killers being wiped out, the shadow of Kingpin unexpectedly appeared, which immediately set off alarm bells in Winston's heart.
He frowned as Caron briefly explained the information about the driver, and then mentioned that the truck had disappeared without a trace without being captured by the surrounding surveillance cameras.
Winston pondered for a moment and sneered, "King Bing and those masked men with bounties have been in conflict many times recently, and Damico was originally his ally. Haha, this method is really not very good."
Caron: “What should we do?”
Winston raised his glass again. "Block the news about V's battle. All the people are dead anyway. As for the survivor... let her stay in the hotel for now."
Caron: "Is this okay?" He felt that Winston knew what he was doing, but his teammates and opponents might not cooperate.
Winston took a sip of his tea. "Whoever is capable can do it. We won't do it. By the way, the time and place of V's appearance, this must have been leaked from a bar, right?"
Caron: "Yes, the survivors also got the account of the informant at that time."
Winston: "Let the survivors pass, and spread the news that the mastermind behind the masked man, who is offering a reward of 10 million, is Kingpin."
Caron understood: "Yes."