Society Marches On [Juarez/Public]

((Gotta wait to reply on my other thread so I don't run over someone else's post. XD I ought to be studying right now. BUT I LIVE DANGEROUSLY. ...The dangerous life of an Asian student. :I So here, I thought I'd try out Maria while I dangerously procrastinate.))

There was something exciting about the shady life. The underground life. The thieves' and smugglers' world.

Not that anyone would ever guess that Maria was living in such a world, when she was walking freely in such extravagant settings. She wasn't really accustomed to riches like this, but...she wasn't going to complain. The cushy life wasn't so terrible. Especially not compared to the very poor city she'd grown up in. She was never going back, if she could help it; an illegal and nomadic life was better than no life at all.

And then, she doubted she'd ever get in trouble for her lawless activities. Did anyone even care, these days? What police force was going to trail them as they traveled across lands, to arrest one woman who acquired alcohol and a few drugs for her caravan through not-so-approved means? Worse stuff (WAY worse than trafficking and doing deals with the mafia) went down in this circus, anyways, and no one gave a flying fuck. So she didn't see that there was anything to be worried about. These rich people could probably tip off anyone they wanted, anyways, to get their booze. Must be nice.

She was currently going through her inventory and doing some bill-counting, having just gone through a couple of sales. It wasn't only the customers at the carnival who had to fork over the cash, but the people who worked there, too. Even the spoiled carnies. Orders from the top; they had to use carnival money to purchase the alcohol, so they couldn't just be giving it away for free anymore.

Having counted up and safely stowing away the profits, and making careful note of how much merchandise was left (this was the tricky part of her business; she had to be able to predict whether or not to place an order with her contacts before or after the caravan packed up and moved to a different city), she sat back and waited to see if someone else would come by. At this time of the day, most of the customers were gone, and it was the carnies who came for their brew. She wasn't much of a people-person--she used to be shy, now it was that she just kept to herself--so she had yet to become formally acquainted with most of her coworkers.

((idk where she sells the alcohol from; an official booth, or a shady behind-the-tent kind of outpost, or what. That's why I put this in the Main Tent; no clue where it should go. :I I don't wanna take too many liberties, since I've already seemingly decided that this is prohibition-era. xD /shot))

((LMAO, I SOMEHOW COMPLETELY FORGOT IT WAS PROHIBITION ERA. OTL. :l How you get all that wine, Auguste?))

Auguste did not like to remember his first introduction to this country. It was in a restaraunt, right after he got off the boat. The restaraunt seemed to be a nice place, but then Auguste asked for the wine menu. They didn't have one. Alcohol was illegal. First, Auguste knew it must have been an error in communication. It wasn't. He went out of the place, and tried for another restaraunt. They said the same thing. Somehow, Auguste was not warned beforehand of this. He probably wouldn't have agreed to come if he knew. Or he would have brought more wine. He had wine with nearly every meal. He couldn't go without it. Wine was like his water. America was a desert.

So he asked around, and found that the law was fairly easy to get past. The wine was bad, but he found a few decent wines. It was a shame, that the best had could find was the worst of what he would normally deem acceptable. The people he bought wine from here were not the wine brewers of his home country. They were criminals, and very dangerous looking people. He didn't like this whole 'prohibition' business one bit.

Now he had asked around for the girl with the alcohol. Everyone knew her. Auguste recieved her description, and some directions. He hadn't introduced himself to her, either. He would need to get close to her, if he wanted good wines. He was willing to pay a high price if she could get the best.

At last he found her. He smiled, walking up to her booth. She was not terribly bad looking. She was a little too...trashy for his tastes, but he could find some way to get close to her.

"Can you show me your wine selections?" and he exposed his signature, charming smile.

((HOPE I CAN POP IN.))

((MARIA IMPORTED IT FOR HIM, OBV. He just didn't know it. She's good at her job like that. /shot))

When she heard the stand being approached, she glanced up from her ledger and raised an eyebrow. Not a person she'd met before, and he didn't look like one of the carnies.

She thought she'd heard that the new manager of finances, who people had been quietly talking about, was French. And maybe she'd never known any French people, but this guy's accent was pretty recognizable. Was this her new boss? She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Something in her told her that she didn't like the French all that much, though she couldn't really say why. Oh, right, Juarez vs the Second Mexican Empire.

That being said, though, she wasn't going to let that get her in trouble with the new management. This was a job she couldn't really afford to lose.

Flipping the pages in her ledger, she handed him the list of wines--which was probably not as long or as nice as he'd like it to be. Wine wasn't usually as popular with the guests or the other carnies. It wasn't really the kind of beverage one drank, at a circus.

"If you're looking for something particular, I can get it imported," she offered coolly, "But it'll cost you." Not that she would complain about that.

((IT'S PUBLIC FOR A REASON, BRO. B) ))

"Auguste Yves-Marie de Bourbon. I am the new manager of finances, for the whole carnival." Auguste had trouble with the brothel owner, but he was going to teach that man to be in line. This girl would hopefully follow the rules of the carnival. She was being funded by the carnival, she better pay them in return.

"Your boss." he smiled. As if that would win some favor with her. She wanted to please her boss, wouldn't she? Hopefully that would mean free, or cheaper and easy access to wine. He was very open to the idea of being bargained with. It wasn't corruption, no, just... people moving themselves up. It was understandable, and it was benefitial to both him and them.

He glanced at her wine list. It was not very impressive. His smile was gone as soon as he read them all, and found nothing of taste. Were these all homebrews...? Made in America... There was absolutly nothing on here that he liked. It was almost as dissapointing as when he learned about the whole no alcohol thing.

"Mon dieu- what...what is even wrong with this place...." People could not live like this. "Import some Beaujolais- God, the weather is so hot, lately." And the list went on for a while, stating which regions, what varieties and from whom he wanted the wine. He gave a long list, with many different types. It didn't matter the price, prohibition was very well the end of the world. He was stocking up, enough that he knew was safe. It would be significantly pricey, but that was okay, he controlled all the revenues for the carnival, he had an endless supply of money.

"I'm willing to pay whatever the price is-" And another smile. Maybe he could woo her with his charm and dashing good looks. She should also know that it would be dangerous to her future to overcharge him. He did have control of the money... The money for everyone. He gave the book back to her. "But it can't be that much?"

((Don't worry, Juarez, something in everyone tells them that they don't like the French. :l ....though they also can't really say why... /shot down. ALSO Idk wines in the 30s...so I'm going to kind of cheat, sorry. :l ))

"María Juárez." She offered back simply. Her full name could have been given, but she usually didn't care to. Foreigners tended to not understand the significance behind a Hispanic 'middle' name, so there was no point in adding 'Cruz' in there. And she wasn't fond of her other surname. It was too Spanish.

Luckily for Auguste, she was no simpleton. Just because she worked with the mafia didn't mean she was bad at business. If anything, it meant the opposite--doing bad business with mobsters had much graver consequences than getting a pay slash. She wasn't exactly one to suck up, per say, but she understood the favor system. You favored your boss. Period. What could you expect to accomplish if you didn't?

And she caught the look on his face. Unsurprising. This guy seemed like some sort of connoisseur--no, not 'seemed like', but 'definitely was'. As he shot off a laundry list of names (Jesus Christ, this guy was obviously a major wino), she had to struggle to keep a scowl from growing on her face as she struggled to commit it all to memory. What the hell, he wouldn't even give her a written list or something? (She didn't even bother trying to note it all down herself; French words were way too impossible to spell.) Talk about making her job needlessly difficult.

"I'm willing to pay whatever the price is-- But it can't be that much?"

Now, he would be sorely disappointed if he thought he could woo her. She wasn't the woo-able type. But she could pick up on a suggestion when she heard it. "This is the way it works: I call up the traffickers, they bring the stuff to me, and I pay them off--with carnival funds. Then I sell it. I get my paycheck, and the rest of the profits go to Mistique." She shrugged carelessly, "You control the cash now, so I don't care how it gets paid for, you catch my drift? Ain't my problem, as long as I get my cut."

He could fund this whole thing entirely through Mistique's money, without pulling a single bill out of his own pocket, and it wouldn't bother her. No, her real problem would be finding someone to smuggle this all in. It sounded like the entirety of it was coming from Euro-land, so she'd probably have to talk with someone in Canada, and from there, ship it all the way to the caravan. Bourbon's wallet wasn't going to be the one suffering. Mistique's would.

((I can say why. "They're rude." /SHOTDOWN And lmao, idk wine, period. You could make up some vaguely French-sounding name, and I wouldn't think twice about it. XD))

Auguste had no idea how much this would cost. He knew his wines were pretty expensive. All the wine he ordered would add up to a hefty price, bootlegged or not. Then she said there would be a few middlemen? She gave no detail of the price, but Auguste knew it would add up. And yet, he wasn't even hesitant to change anything. He needed the wine. His well being was just as important as( if not more than) the well being of the carnival. He controlled the carnival's funds. He was the carnival, and he could use it as he liked.

"How much money do we need to get to you-... for buying off from the bootleggers?" That was funded by the carnival anyways. The rest of it, though, her individual profits were also going out of the carnival's wallets. This expedenture could have been a gain, but it would be a major loss of revenue. Luckily, Auguste supported no idea of transperency in the system. Auguste would try to cover up the facts, anyways. He could just as easily blame the loss in money on that Chernobyl girl, or no- he could blame it on something the Austrian whore did.

"You'll get your money when I get my wine, obviously." He smiled at her again.

He didn't really trust her so much with remembering all his wines. Was she Spanish? Well, she seemed kind of...funny looking for a Spaniard. (She could have been from all those Spanish speaking places under America?) The Spanish knew wine pretty well. If she was Spanish, though, she probably did not come from the upper class. She probably didn't know wine that well.

"Do you have something I can write down my order on? I would not want you making a mistake..."

(( ffff- I like to pretend that I know wines. :l ))

She thought about it, running some figures through her head. But even after a minute or so, she could not get a definite price in mind. This was definitely the biggest task she'd ever been issued.

"Can't say for sure right now," she finally admitted, "I don't know a lot of guys in Europe, but I gotta hire someone to find all this wine to begin with. Then someone's gotta ship it over to Canada--'cause you can't just bring it straight to America. Then someone's gotta pick it up, drive it to the border, get it safely across. Then it's gotta get to a train or whatever, and make it all the way to us--and the police and train conductors got to be paid off the whole way, or else it gets confiscated." She waved a hand indicatively, "See what I'm saying? Lot of people are gonna get involved in this, and none of them are gonna risk it for free. 'Fore I can give you an estimate, I have to see who'll agree to do it, first."

It was important to explain all of this, least he get the impression that she was grossly overcharging him (or the carnival, whatever), when the time came to write up the bill. But now that she'd laid out what had to be done, it was dawning on her exactly how big this was going to be. Most of the stuff she normally got was trafficked in from Canada or Mexico, or even from some illegal brewery in the States themselves. Shipping across the ocean--no, just finding someone in Europe to begin with who would be willing to go on a scavenger hunt all across France? That alone would be a major blow to the bank.

Still considering all of this, she flipped to a blank page in her ledger and handed it to him along with her pen, "Knock yourself out." She'd make copies of the list and send it to all of the people who would be involved. They'd probably do a double-take when they saw what all was on it, wondering what kind of new ultra-wealthy employer she was working for. ...Or what soon-to-be bankrupted one.

Auguste took her ledger and pen, with a slight nod. He began to write all his wines down. This would be to last him a while, so he needed all kinds of wines for all kinds of situations, weathers and foods. "Some of these wines are meant to be drunk in their youth..." he pointed at a few of them. "Make sure these are not delayed. Really, I would like them all as soon as possible." That would add to the already enormous price. It could not be too much, though. He would pay employees less, blaming it on Chernobyl. He'd have to spend less on things for the carnival. They wouldn't lose that much, really...

"My family lives in France-" Thanks to his father's rascality he had many connections, spread all throughout the country. He wasn't going to let his father know, obviously. Auguste could only imagine what would happen if his father knew about this expensive expenditure. Auguste would probably be banished to live in America forever. "I have a cousin in Bordeaux- he knows wine. You can get him to find the wines, I bet...And he knows wines better than me, take a few of his recommendations..." And Auguste wrote down his address. "Don't claim any connection to me...or the carnival, if you plan to go to him."

He finished writing, and handed the long list to the Mexican girl. "You won't tell anyone about this." There was no 'or else' to the end of that. Auguste was too classy to add something like that. However there was one, revealed through a subtle tone difference, and the slightest unfriendly change in his smile. He wasn't a mafioso, he couldn't get someone to shoot her. However, he could fire her pretty easy. And who knew, maybe someone would be willing to shoot her? "You want to make the price as low as possible... That would be best for us all. Though I'm still expecting it very soon." If the Carnival went into debt, that would not only be money out of Auguste's pocket, but it would be money out of everyone's pocket. This girl included.

Drunk in their youth? She nearly rolled her eyes. And expedited shipping. Of course. She had a feeling she wouldn't even need to ask. Nodding as she went down the list, she made a mental note to get in touch with her own contacts first before even thinking about going to his family. For one thing, she had no idea if this cousin of his would charge more or less than a hired thug, and honestly? She wasn't thinking about getting any more recommendations at this point. She was thinking about how to cut these costs as much as possible.

Snorting, she closed the ledger, "If I was a snitch, I'd be too busy being dead by now to do this job." Of course, there was a difference between being a snitch and being smart. No, she would never be a rat as long as this went down without a hitch. But if problems came up because the price was too high, and the carnival was in trouble, she would gladly sell him out to save her own career. And he would be a damned fool if he thought anyone would do otherwise.

"I'll see what I can do. When I get an estimate, I'll run it by you before placing the order." And maybe he would think twice when he saw how unavoidably costly this would be. "Look, I ain't a miracle worker. Even if Jesus was doing this, it would be expensive, no matter what. But I'll get it as cheap as I can." Bankruptcy would probably not happen, but it could be close. Very close, depending on how he managed the revenue. But that part was his job, not hers. She just planned to pull every string she had.

((I will probably have to state a price for this eventually. But I'll let you know right now: I have no honest clue how much this would come out to, realistically. Unless you do, I'm probably just going to say something along the lines of 'tens of thousands' or w/e. XD))

The prices could not be that much. The carnival easily made more than 10,000 even on a slow day, with their very hefty ticket prices, and the sheer number of people who came to visit. He would just cut profits from the lesser people. They had been recieving too much money anyways. Like that Austrian whore. Auguste knew how much she recieved in a day, she didn't need that much. The Mexican would win her fair share, as this act was putting her in his favor. He was indebted to her, so he felt no reason to pay her less.

Auguste would figure something out. Romanov was a smart guy, he'd fix it all. The carnival would not suffer, neither would Auguste, and neither would Maria.

He smiled at the girl. "I can assure you that the price will not be a problem for us." knocking a hand on the table. "My car is located..." he pointed a finger towards the general direction. "Over there. When you come in with the price, try not to be too obvious." Obvious about the deal he was making with her. "If anyone asks, just make something up, it should be easy enough."

He pulled out some money from his pocket. "And I'll try a bottle of your California wine, just to tide me over..." He had no doubt that it would be bad. But bad wine was better than no wine.

((BILLIONS AND BILLIONS FFFUU- Kurdish smugglers who cross over the Iran-Iraq border make 10 dollars, that's all I know. And the Iran-Iraq border is pretty...different than the America-Canada border.THEN something says "Drinks that once cost a nickel before Prohibition could cost 50 cents or more" And money was significantly less inflated back then, SO IDK /shot Idk if it would be that much, but I'm not sure- Also, he ordered like 3 months of it, so ffff a lot. Sorry if I'm not much help. )

Well, if he wasn't worried about it, she saw no reason to be. Who knew? Maybe he had the finances figured out better than she knew. She shrugged in an 'if you say so' fashion, "Sure. Give me a day or two." She had a lot of people to call up.*

Going to the back, she pulled out a dark bottle and handed it over to him. She couldn't help but snicker slightly as she accepted the money, "You're not gonna like this stuff, jefe. Don't say I didn't warn you."

((/shorrrrrrrrrt because I have to study. :( lol, trust me, you cannot trust the money people make in Iran to be any representation of accurate/fair wages. I have a hand-carved, hand-painted pencil box inlaid with millimeter-sized mosaic pieces from Esfahan that cost one-tenth of a cent. :I So ten dollars is like, BILLIONS! AND BILLIONS! a lot. XD I think the solution here is to just keep making it sound like a really big number without ever specifically stating what it is. /SHOT

*Also, I am just assuming she has access to a phone. :\))

(("one-tenth of a cent" "one cent"

What is wrong with me today. XD))

((FFFF- Yeah, FROM WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE 30s, I'd say that prices were pretty comparable. /shottt What, with getting to the movies for like a cent. :l And that sounds so lovely. <3 <3 :l Also, that sounds like a plan.))

He looked at the wine, and another frown instantly formed on his face. This woman didn't even know wine, but she already gave it a bad reccomendation. "You would drink sewege water if it was all you had, would you not?" he muttered. A true comparisson if there ever was one. This wine could just as well have come from the sewer. It didn't look very good. No doubt it was made by unexperienced bootleggers. It could even be dangerous.

He nodded slightly with the wine bottle in hand. His smile returned only out of manners.

"Well- Merci. Just remember... Not to take too much time." Then waving her off, he left the scene.