Manhattan Reborn 1978

new York.

Afternoon~

(Note: Due to geographical differences, the United States has a total of six time zones.

New York is an urban area in the eastern United States, Houston, Texas and Chicago belong to the Central Time Zone, California is in the Western Time Zone, and Alaska and Hawaii also have their own time zones.)

. . .

Longline Building, 33 Thomas Street, Lower Manhattan.

This building was invested by AT&T, the largest telecommunications company in the United States, and was built between 1969 and 1974.

Its appearance is simple, rugged and powerful. It is a 39-story building. The most unique thing is that the entire building has no windows except for the ventilation vents in the middle. It looks like a huge bunker.

AT&T eventually adopted a windowless design for the entire building to ensure that the building's wiring station and office staff can continue to work without being affected by the severe weather outside the building when hurricanes hit every year.

(Note: However, with the development of the times, mobile communication technology has become more and more mature, and this building has become less and less useful to AT&T.

Therefore, the building was later rented to the National Security Agency of the United States as the main base for collecting suspicious communications intelligence.

. . .

33 Thomas Street, in front of the Long Line Building.

Harold Stone, head of the FBI's New York branch, led his young criminal psychologist Torres Bradman and their immediate superior House D. Stanfield. The three of them walked out of the building, got into a car and drove away quickly.

on the way.

Torres, the driver who was temporarily called by his boss to play a guest role today, glanced at the two "big guys" with dark faces and silent words through the rearview mirror, and felt that the "air pressure" in the car was getting lower and lower, and it was a bit hard to breathe.

When he parked his car at an intersection, he quietly rolled down the window a little and silently enjoyed the cool spring breeze blowing in from outside.

"Torres, let's send Harold home first." House said as he took out three beautifully wrapped small gift boxes from his briefcase and turned to smile at his old friend.

"I will be going back to the headquarters soon. Please take this gift back to your wife, Herlis."

"..Okay!" Mr. Stone was silent for a few seconds and then accepted the gift.

"What? You still can't figure it out?" House knew his old friend's temper very well. He knew that he was still feeling resentful about what he had just experienced, so he smiled and comforted him.

"AT&T's advanced technology can help us obtain information that cannot be obtained through conventional channels."

"I see!"

"What questions do you have?"

"I... I'm not in a hurry to go home, so I'll pull over first." Mr. Stone looked at the driver Torres hesitantly, and after a few seconds of silence, he reached out and patted his seat.

"OK!" Torres obediently slowed down the car, parked it on the side of the street and got out.

Mr. Stone turned sideways and looked at his old friend House. He asked in a low voice and sharp eyes, "Who asked you to investigate this case?"

"..." House had a calm expression on his face, pursed his lips and did not answer.

"very good!"

"Thank you for not deceiving me with those elaborate lies."

"But you should know clearly in your heart that we are just tools used by them!"

"AT&T's Long Line Building controls most of Manhattan's telephone communication systems. You brought me to their doorstep without any reservations and asked their top management to cooperate with the investigation?"

"How many phone calls did former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller make in the days before he died unexpectedly in his office? Is that something we two can check?"

"The Rockefeller family has already accepted the results of the New York police investigation, and now you are jumping out to continue the in-depth investigation..."

"What's going on in your head, asshole!"

"Do you know what will happen to me as the main person in charge if this case continues to be investigated?"

"I know, that's why I came to help you..."

"You're not helping me at all!"

"You are using yourself as a bargaining chip to get into the game, and you are also dragging me in with you!"

"Tell me, who asked you to come?"

"..." House lowered his head slightly, his eyes wandering and he fell silent again.

"Hmph!" Mr. Stone's eyes were burning with anger. He gritted his teeth and grabbed his old friend's arm, and continued to ask in a very low voice.

"Did they take advantage of your weakness?"

"You are the one who was threatened by them?"

"Don't ask. Knowing this won't do you any good." House slowly withdrew his arm, took a deep breath, looked at his old friend and smiled bitterly.

"Okay, I won't ask." Mr. Stone looked outside the car, put his hands in front of his mouth, and said angrily.

"If you want to be the second Edgar Hoover, I can't control it, and I don't want to control it."

"But I know a guy who knows a lot of dark secrets."

"He might be able to give you the answer!"

"Oh? Who is it?"

"Odis Parker."

"..." House's expression changed rapidly several times and he nodded slightly.

Mr. Stone looked down at the small gift box in his hand, put them all in his pocket, opened the car door and said, "From now on, we will not meet again except for business matters."

"I have a home, a wife and children."

"Odis Parker is a psychopath, you better be careful."

"Understood, thank you!"

"..." Mr. Stone turned around and looked deeply at his old friend, then slammed the car door shut and strode away.

Torres, who was strolling and smoking on the street, saw his boss walk away without any greeting. He instantly felt a headache, threw away the cigarette butt, returned to his "work station" in the car, looked in the rearview mirror and asked.

"where are we going?"

"..Gold Coin Hotel!"

"what?"

"You don't know the way?"

"Ah~ I know him." Torres started the car and said carefully while observing the vehicles coming from behind.

"I've heard some rumors about the Gold Coin Hotel, but I've never been in there, so I don't know what it's like inside."

"Well, don't go in later, just go home directly." House heard Torres's little thoughts and replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay." Torres grinned as he shifted the gear, glanced in the rearview mirror, kept his mouth shut and drove seriously, and began to think about where to go to have fun tonight.

----

Houston, Texas.

89 Pinewood Avenue, Piney Point Village, Memorial District, west of downtown.

In the spacious backyard, under the bright afternoon sunshine, waves of women's joyful laughter were carried far away by the warm spring breeze.

At this moment, David, who was sleeping soundly in the bedroom, suddenly felt someone gently shaking his arm.

He tried to open his eyes, raised his hand to press his swollen temple, and asked the maid Chashida who was squatting beside the bed: "What time is it?"

"Four p.m."

"Oh, something?"

"Yes, someone just brought you a gift."

"Um... what gift? Just accept it. Let me talk for a while."

"No, it was Sera's mother who asked me to come and call you! You'd better get up and take a look." The maid Chashida said it firmly, but her hands were already helping David press his head to relieve his headache.

"Tsk~" David felt helpless and amused as he slowly sat up. He tilted his head to look at the smiling Chashida, scratched her nose with his fingers and sighed.

"It seems that my status in this family is going to get lower and lower."

"Yes? No?"

"You may not have woken up yet, so you have this illusion." Chasida showed a very rare mischievous expression, looked at David with gentle and passionate eyes, and smiled.

"Oh~"

David gave an expression that said "I don't believe you!", got out of bed, found his shoes, put them on, and staggered out of the bedroom.

Chashida followed him with a snicker on his lips, seemingly unaware that he hadn't spoken to anyone like this for a long, long time.

. . .

in the living room.

As soon as David came out of the bedroom, he saw his mother Sierra and his father David Sr., sitting in silence around a wooden box in the living room.

"What are you looking at?" David walked over curiously and found that there were more than a dozen exquisitely crafted Easter eggs neatly arranged in the open wooden box.

"Who sent this?"

"You do not know?"

"I.."

"Here is a letter, take a look at it yourself." Seeing her husband, David Sr., with a gloomy face, Sera's mother handed the unopened envelope in her hand to her son, and took her husband to the side.

David glanced at his parents, then looked down at the envelope in his hand and simply opened it.

After a while, David finished reading the short letter and basically understood why his parents reacted so strangely.

Because this so-called Easter gift was a holiday gift sent by Gensuke Sawakawa, a senior aide of the Yasuda family of the Fuji Group, on behalf of Kaedichiro Yasuda.

In addition, he also specially attached two sentences with multiple meanings in the letter, as well as a photocopy of a personal account deposit slip at a small bank in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.

Give a house + money + gifts?

Will pie fall from the sky?

What do they want?

David folded the letter and envelope in his hand, put them in his pocket, walked to his parents, and said with a calm expression and serious tone: "This is just a small accident. It will never happen again."

"..." Old David, who usually seldom showed displeasure to his son, sat on the sofa, looked up at his son, and spoke word by word.

"I don't like islanders."

"...I understand!" Some forgotten and vague fragments of memory suddenly flashed through David's mind. He took a deep breath, walked to his mother and sat down, nodding.

Serra's mother knew that her husband deliberately used the word "dislike" to consider his son's feelings and expressed it in a very tactful way.

So she held her son's hand and said earnestly: "Do you remember that you have an uncle?"

"Yeah!" David's memory gradually became clearer and he held his mother's hand tightly.

"After he joined the army during World War II, he participated in many battles and was commended by his superiors for his bravery in combat many times."

"But he eventually died on the battlefield of the Battle of Okinawa and was not lucky enough to come back alive."

The voice of Sera's mother made David feel as if he was brought back to decades ago. He subconsciously asked, "Did Uncle get married and have children before he joined the army?"

"Of course." Sera's mother said a little depressedly, with complex emotions flashing in her eyes.

"He and his wife had two children, a son and a daughter."

"When the news of his death came back, your father and I offered to help his wife many times, but she stubbornly rejected our kindness and took the children to Wyoming, where her brother lived."

"A few days ago, because we were moving here and changing our mailing address and phone number, your father wrote to her to inform her."

"But just now when you were resting, her son called and said that she had unfortunately passed away due to illness the night before yesterday."