In the meantime, there was rustling on the other end of the phone, and then Selina said, “You’re not wrong. I’m going out too.”
Luke asked, “What are you going to do?”
Selina said, “Haha, I’m going to see what Karen is up to. It’s the weekend anyway.”
Luke agreed with her, and simply reminded her, “Don’t be reckless. Let me know if anything happens.”
It was broad daylight, and Selina also had some of his gadgets; she should be safe as long as she remained careful.
On the other end, Selina put on her jacket, grabbed her car key, and followed Karen, who was following Natalie. Thus, while Karen tailed Natalie, Selina tailed Karen.
Looking at Karen, who was wearing a gray sunhat and huge sunglasses that covered her face, Selina chuckled behind her and started texting Luke.
Luke read the messages at first, before he simply converted them to audio and listened to them like a livestream.
These women… who knew what they were thinking. Had Selina been infected by Karen too? Luke pondered as he continued collecting intelligence.
Rumors of him had now spread around the gangs in Los Angeles.
There was no specific information on him, but he was nicknamed the Ghost Butcher.
He was too thorough in his actions, and things or people always went missing when he got involved; forget blood or bullets, there weren’t even any traces of a struggle left at the scenes.
Thus, the rumors grew even more mysterious and terrifying, like some American urban horror story which was shared among the Los Angeles gangs.
Unfortunately, neither the storytellers nor the listeners could confirm the rumors.
There were many criminal groups in Los Angeles, but Luke had been cleaning them up regularly; furthermore, he always aimed at mid-level members.
These missing mid-level members commanded over a thousand bottom-level members, and their disappearances led to no end of unrest.
Luke had only been conducting this purge operation for two months. If he kept this up, one third of the mid-level gang members of L.A. would be gone by next year, and more than five thousand bottom-level gang members would lose their direct leaders.
However, the L.A. gangs would probably attack each other before that.
Following heavy casualties, the winners would claim the losers’ turf and reestablish order in the underworld.
For bottom-level gang members, they would make a living under a different boss.
Gang bosses might be safe while Luke eliminated the mid-management, but they didn’t know how many lackeys they had or who those lackeys even were. The chaos caused by the disruption of this chain of command would last for a long time.
Faced with this situation, the L.A. gangs were already starting to look for solutions.
Luke was currently following two groups of people who were particularly active.
They had been reaching out to numerous big gangs, hoping to deal with the Ghost Butcher together.
Luke was quite happy to see that.
The bigger a gang, the easier his purge would be.
Ordinary small gangs would pretty much collapse after Luke attacked them once or twice.
Big gangs, on the other hand, were like regenerative monsters that kept absorbing disbanded gangs and picking the more ruthless members to become mid-level leaders.
In that situation, Luke could cut down those mid-level leaders when the time was ripe, like a farmer harvesting his crops.
Those gangs would have done the vetting for him, and helped distinguish regular gangsters from ferocious criminals.
Given the chaos in L.A.’s underbelly, many agencies had dispatched spies and even undercover operatives to investigate, and Luke certainly didn’t want to hurt them.
However, this was only a temporary inconvenience.
He was now only three stat points away from his Mental Strength reaching 20. By then, he would easily acquire Bobby’s Mental Communication, and it would be no problem for him then to tell friend from foe.
Elsewhere, Selina was having a good time too.
The gadgets which Luke had supplied her with weren’t as powerful as those in the police car, but they were enough to keep Karen under surveillance.
Seeing the paranoid housewife tail Natalie furtively, Selina could only choke down her laughter before she exploded like a boiling kettle.
If Natalie wasn’t stupid, she had to be deliberately letting Karen follow her.
Otherwise, a professional would have to be blind if they couldn’t spot Karen with her unsubtle stalking.
Even someone as calm and composed as Luke found Karen’s paranoia a bit of a headache. Tim and Natalie were really unlucky to pick her as a target.
For the next hour, the three women wandered into a coffee shop and a bookstore, and then ended up in a mall.
Selina watched Karen enter the mall. She thought for a moment, then followed her into the mall.
Karen reached the underwear section and picked up a few random bras without looking at them, before she followed Natalie into the fitting room.
Selina was lost for words. Is this how you tail someone?
Thinking for a moment, she felt that she had better stop Karen from crossing the line, and she went to the fitting room as well.
On the way, she texted Luke. “I’m going to the fitting room. Natalie and Karen are in there. Do you want me to take a photo for
you?”
Luke was writing in his notebook when he suddenly heard the message. He quickly replied, “What are you doing?”
Wasn’t she following Karen? Why were they all in the fitting room? Luke was utterly perplexed.
Selina snorted. “You have time to reply now that we’re talking about a fitting room? I’m going in because Karen followed Natalie into the fitting room.”
Luke ignored her mocking, but was still baffled. “She followed her into the fitting room. Seriously?”
Selina said, “So I better stop her. This is getting really awkward.”
After a brief silence, Luke said, “You could call Karen.”
Selina said, “It’s too late. I’m already in.”
Luke said, “… Good luck then. Also, keep the voice channel on. Safety first.”
“Welcome to the live broadcast from the fitting room.” Selina mocked him again and turned on the voice channel on her fake phone so that Luke could hear what was going on.
In the fitting room, she said in delight, “Ah, Karen, Natalie, you’re here too?”
Then, she looked at the two women strangely. “…Is this a bad time? Should I give you some privacy?”
Inside the fitting room, Natalie, who was in nothing but sexy black underwear, had the absolute advantage in height as she pressed the short and plump Karen against the wall with both hands. Karen, on the other hand, had her hands crossed over her bosom, as if she was a decent woman being violated.