Weasel Reginald Biggs

The less-empowered types, the undecided, the morally shifty and most mundanes who get slapped around by greater powers go here by default.
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IamLEAM1983
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Weasel Reginald Biggs

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Name: Weasel Reginald Biggs
Age: 56 years old
Gender: male
Species: anthro weasel

Strengths: standing as the defacto chairman of the Commission, Weasel has the ability to call for meetings between all of the city's criminal elements. In the twenty-five years he's been able to exert power, he's made it very clear that refusing an audience without a clearly excusable reason is something that's done in bad taste. It doesn't strictly insult him as it insults the Commission's entire membership.

As such, Weasel dictates the Commission's greater, over-arching goals, as based upon the stated needs of all the other bosses. He holds the ledger books, keeps track of the meetings, and essentially acts as the keystone for the city's mundane criminal outfits. His control is what's keeping the smaller outfits in line, despite what the Deputy Chiefs might tell Ethan Alderan.

More importantly, however, Weasel has access to a criminal network that spans America and reaches out to Italy. He stands at the helm of an exceedingly wealthy syndicate, even without the involvement of the other local criminal groups. As such, he stands as an extraordinarily versatile individual. If he doesn't know the gist of a specific discipline, he knows someone who does. Theft, traffic, prostitution, tax evasion, assassinations, fraud – Hope's local outfit is but one branch of a country-spanning group of Sicilian-Americans who know the ins and outs of how to engage in reprehensible activities without getting caught. The basis of it all is to delegate most of the dirty work; and Weasel has access to a rather large selection of people skilled in the art of doing things most people aren't okay with.

On top of it, he stands as an excellent operator of legitimate businesses. While his initial background in the social graces was lacking, his kin and closest consiglieri can't deny that he's a fair bit of a math wizard. For every horrendously-spelled letter he types out, he's able to take ledger books that stink up to the high heavens of obvious misdeeds and works his very simple and utterly mundane magic, cleaning up damning evidence in a few short hours. His knowledge of the law is second to none, and he finds himself endowed with a sufficiently developed moral cuirass to be disgusted by more overt criminals.

It might be easier to simplify things by saying that Weasel's greatest power is that he's ever-so-slightly larger than life, overflows with fun family anecdotes, is difficult to bring down in any lasting manner, psychologically speaking, and generally stands as an honestly likeable person. He might have a slightly thuggish outlook on life, but that bold frankness tends to bring a bit of fresh air in circumstances where poise and pretense become so important that guests and patrons forget how to let themselves be themselves for a few minutes.

As such, Weasel is a noted and celebrated entrepreneur and philanthropist who's known to be good with parties and for parties without overdoing it, a quick-witted conversationalist who has a fairly disarming ease at making friends. Covered in a self-generated armour of irreproachable social poise (and of excusable little flubs that only make him relatable), nobody would think to mention his rumoured ties with organized crime in polite society.

Good social graces are impervious to all bullets, knives and spells. Having a good core at the base of your enterprises makes it so that even if you're found out, your foes will hesitate to land the killing blow. He's not a bad guy in the sense of the term that would be achingly convenient for Shield and the city – he's simply willing to do anything to better those his family has traditionally supported throughout the last six generations. In fact, those few members of the force who honestly do know of what he actually does for a living would state that being forced to try and haul in a guy you'd almost want to invite over for a beer is downright infuriating.
Weaknesses: naturally, Weasel is a mundane. As such, if you manage to get past his hired professionals, his goons and his personal bodyguards, you'll be faced with a man who hasn't had to gun down a single person since his formal introduction into the Family. He keeps a pistol on his person at all times, but it clearly is a tool he considers he's forced to carry around, and that pulling it out speaks poorly of him as a mob boss. More often, if he pulls it out, it's because he intends to clean it out – or to hand it to someone else who won't be quite so squeamish about pulling the trigger.

His loyalty to the outfit has instilled him with a few elements that fit in with the stereotype of the noble scoundrel. Notably, he absolutely cannot abide harm being done to children or women, and is noted for his ruggedly chivalrous treatment of most women he meets. While his pistol is something he hesitates to pull out, wanton and unnecessary violence brings out the asshole in him, as he puts it. A firm believer in eye-for-an-eye justice, his normally restrained and controlled approach to criminal behaviour can turn downright homicidal if he's faced with a man who broke the clan's core tenets.

Generally speaking, if a close collaborator of Weasel is found dead and riddled with Desert Eagle bullets, you can safely assume he more than had it coming. The usually mild capo killing one of his own men triggered a rather lengthy investigation a few years ago, only for it to reveal that Biggs had been utterly disgusted upon realizing that he'd kept an unrepentant child molester in his ranks for over ten years.

These instances are obviously where his legitimate appearance cracks – and they also provide him with a rather perverse form of social support from those individuals who do seriously believe that unregulated vigilantism is what the city requires. He's sent himself to the pokey twice before already, thanks to this noble streak of his. Thankfully, reduced sentences and friends in the DA's office tend to turn initially long periods of isolation into intensive networking opportunities. He trades off the ability to act on the field for the opportunity to leave the slammer with a thicker Rolodex than before. That's a double-edged sword he both welcomes when it occurs and dreads when it's looming right overhead.

The mixture of slight lecherousness and very Italian chivalry that characterizes him more or less condemns him to being unable to be a one-woman man. He can have an extraordinary amount of affection for one specific woman, but this doesn't cancel out his tendency to actively want to check out other nests and the birds therein. While he's never objectified a member of the fairer sex, it's plainly obvious to all that he tends to think that there's more than enough of him to go around. While his closest advisors regularly tell him to tone down the showing-off of new conquests, meetings between former darlings of his have happened.

In this respect, Weasel's greatest weakness isn't so much his reputation or his propensity to bleed to death if shot – it's what occasionally happens to his social credit when a reporter from one of the local yellow journals manages to catch him swallowing a backhand from a rather irate woman... He keeps all of his buisness acumen and all his colleagues and connections; but whomsoever saw that is more than likely to lose all faith in him – even with his criminal activities notwithstanding.

Appearance: at five feet eight and about two hundred and twenty pounds, Weasel is slightly overweight but seemingly perfectly at ease in his body, which displays the expected markings of his species. A dark brown fur covering contrasting against a hazelnut chest, throat and chin strip lines his skin; and is adequately paired with his hazel eyes.

As expressive and facially eloquent as most other anthros, Weasel seems to be physiologically unable to simply smile. He tends to grin, usually, in the sort of half-snarl that largely depends on the positioning of the corners of his mouth to become either a smile or an outright snarl. His face's skin responds very clearly to those grins, with a myriad of small expression wrinkles and rising or sagging areas further underlining this or that emotion.

On the whole, his face and body are equally easy to read, and both tend to be used to put forward his natural state of simple congeniality and professionalism. If anything, it's his education that takes his merely adequate social performances and makes them special, as he has an uncanny knack for cussing up a storm in such a way as to actually avoid offending others. Using the rapid-fire speech that characterizes his clan and their rather liberal use of the F-bomb, he manages to say the same things someone else, such as Archie or Leonard, would use several long sentences for in only a few short words. Being clear and concise sometimes to the point of bluntness, he tends to naturally gravitate around like-minded people. You'll see him almost perceptibly light up in the presence of someone else who's known for “telling it like it is”, so to speak, and lose interest in whomsoever is prone to speak in a precious or florid manner.

Looking at him also gives a few cues as to the more common elements of his lifestyle. This is a man who very clearly loathes exercise and who holds that the ages-old pasta fests pioneered by hard-working grandmas across the country can't possibly be bad for you. Eating is obviously a centerpiece of his routine, and he seems to very clearly value his noisy and animated tables all covered with loved ones from near and far. His easy smiles speak of a mischievous bent and the tiny bit of swagger he never seems to be without speaks of his self-confidence. He's not self-centered or in denial as to his personal limitations, but he clearly takes pride in what he is known to excel in.

For all of his Italian ebullience, however, Weasel has a very easy time stopping and giving someone else a good listen. Pulling on a stogie seems to have been internalized as a highly intellectual activity by the mustelid : the more furiously he's puffing away, the more intense his number-crunching efforts or his efforts to unravel a difficult situation. A very physical man, Biggs isn't afraid to puff and pace about, muttering curses all the while, if things are particularly dicey.

Still, his temper is fairly even. He doesn't get angry much and when he does, the situation usually warrants it. Because he isn't flat-out evil, however, anyone can tell he has trouble bringing himself to consider the sometimes fairly barbaric solutions some of his cousins and the associates of his uncles will suggest. While some members of the local mob can be unusually cruel for people who repeatedly miss payment deadlines for protection money, the current capo limits his violent displays to anyone who sincerely and utterly manages to disgust or incense him. Which, thankfully, doesn't happen often.

As a rule, all of this is dressed in a simple black suit with a white shirt and black necktie. It's simple, it goes for gala events, funerals and even casual Sundays as far as he's concerned, and you'd need a very keen fashionista's eye to see that he tends to wear Armani suits and imported Italian Oxfords. The relative simplicity of his garb makes it easy to imagine him both strolling about in his limo or driving around on his own. He (visually, at least) tends to fit well into any social strata.

On most days, you'll find him wearing clear glasses with a rather classic black and thick frame. The only sign that these glasses aren't your typical cheap nerd fare is their composition : with reinforced and anodized steel and specially treated glass panels; they're far sturdier than you'd expect. In keeping with the times, his frames project a few timely pieces of information into his field of view – usually the date and time, as well as a few stock quotes and news tickers. They're paired up with his smartphone, which enables him to spot a headline without lowering his head onto a newspaper, and then queue up the associated story on his phone.

If and when he replaces these for sunglasses – even at night – you can assume he's been going through a rather prolonged string of all-nighters for reasons both legitimate and criminal. His eyes tend to be particularly sensitive to effort, so one coffee cup too many plus a few bright lights can combine into migraine fodder.
Behaviour: people tend to have several misconceptions about mafia dons. The stereotypes tend to swing in either one of two directions : you've got the Vito Corleone school of thought, and Tony Montana's philosophy. As far as anyone's concerned, there isn't much ground, or much of any ground at all, between the pizzo and waving high-calibre weapons around to engender fear. You're either a devout Catholic and a bigot or a debauched philanderer and habitual drug user. The truth is, very few people who haven't been part of a sting operation or who haven't spent years observing the mob know precisely how they move, how they manage themselves. If one thing's certain, it's that Weasel isn't quite the sleaze you'd expect, nor is he the distinguished patriarch of an entirely well-oiled criminal machine. The Biggs clan is organic, diverse and far-reaching. Some branches reach far and high, others skitter in the shadows, far out of the reach of common authorities.

To understand Weasel's ethos, you have to understand where the Biggs happen to come from. The first North-American don for the family was Alfonzo Bizzi, a first-generation immigrant who'd emigrated directly out of Santa Croce, a small Sicilian village consisting of a few farm-hand families and their attending landowners. For generations, Santa Croce was kept in relative isolation, its roads and railway only bringing in imported goods and the scant few travellers who wanted to take in the region's bucolic hills and the local vintners' verdant landscapes. The warring city-states of the Renaissance have left a strong imprint of self-reliance on smaller communities, to the point where self-regulation – often in spite of present legal boundaries – became the expected modus operandi for dozens of opposing clans across all of Italy.

To be taken into account is the fact that Benito Mussolini also attempted to present Fascism as an effective anti-mob solution. For several Sicilians, the Duce only reinforced their professed need for autonomous management, to the point where a very leery approach toward official sources of authority became the expected norm.

Most people think the Mob does what it does out of spite; because these families of cutthroat Italian-Americans get their kicks out of twisting legal instances and structures to suit their needs. The truth is, Weasel is like any other mafioso in that he doesn't engage in criminal activities out of disregard for the Law – he does it because this is how he was reared and taught to. He does it because the Mob is the most intricate and solid social structure he's ever known, and he participates in it because family is involved. Like any hardcore Italian-Americans, Weasel has vowed to make the clan come first; in any and all matters of his life. This triggers as many displays of selfless sacrifice and noble endeavours as it does unsavory activities, as the clan operates and thrives in the nooks and crannies sensible people otherwise desert.

To order and civilize the oftentimes scabrous corners of town nobody wants to consider; to turn the practice of looking for your next fix into a business, to give desperate individuals a chance to find financial support at a personal cost to his own coffers – those are his main structural goals. Following the spirit of Lucky Luciano's close collaborators, Weasel takes things he knows to be shameful parts of the human nature, and organizes them neatly. Without the Biggs family overseeing mundane criminal interests, evidence points out that the streets would more than likely be running red. With differing racial, ethnic and structural criminal houses and confessions each sharing the same plot of land, the need for a controlling instance becomes felt. Weasel is that instance for those in town who lack legitimate prospects but aren't afraid to put themselves to use in reprehensible issues.

The mustelid can also draw on the mob's diverse history for lessons to learn. Notably, he knows what few people bother to remember, which is that North American crime syndicates have a point of origin. Weasel is a walking and breathing history book for matters of the unsavory kind, and he could tell you all about the months that saw Chicago turn into a madhouse, even as America was becoming the newest playground of the Sicilian and Calabrese capos. The Castellammarese War of 1929 is the clear and present example of what happens if you leave the old Italian ideals run free on American soil. It's a reminder the whole of America's criminal outfits knows about. Drive-bys, vendettas, struggles to become the Boss of All Bosses – these things don't engender profits, they don't engender safety. It would take Lucky Luciano and the birth of the first crime syndicate for the mafia to become what it stands as today – a multibillion business.

As such, Biggs draws on the Cupola – the Commission – to structure the way the city's various criminal interests legislate and assist one another. If things are to proceed in a civil manner, each racial confession has to be represented by one of its own. All of the city's smaller, mundane gangs work under supervision from the Biggs clan; a setup that's managed to spare Hope from the savagery of particularly vicious groups such as the Crips and Bloods. Under Weasel's rule, there are no betrayals to be tolerated. No backstabs, no pussyfooting around the Commission and its table.

For things to operate fairly, Weasel has stated in the Commission's first Acts that he cannot be expected to legislate Jimmy Winters' men, as the Irish boss himself is a mage. Weasel can't bring his judgment against Winters' vampires, but all mundane criminals in town know that if their own boss won't listen to them, for whatever reason this might be, the rodent stands as the highest mundane criminal authority that can be reached. If, for whatever reason, Winters can't reprimand or discipline one of his mundane boys – out of injury or sickness, for instance, or an extended leave of absence – then Weasel earns the right to speak to and for this mundane member.

Similarly, Sarvin alone can speak for his fellow water creatures and criminalized selkies. If the Finman were to prove unable to legislate those mundanes who work under him, then this responsibility would fall to Weasel. This relationship obviously works both ways : Jimmy and Sarvin are free to defend those vampires or Fae who might happen to work for the mustelid.

This structure ensures that one boss' potential inability to judge a certain social strata fairly is mitigated by another one's ability to do so, and mitigates the potential for vendettas or unfair judgments. Others have called Weasel obsolete in the face of the city's considerable base of criminal visitors from other walks of life or of the solar system – but the fact remains that many aspects of the city's commercial roots are deeply entrenched in the mob culture. To take Weasel and the Biggs clan out of the equation is to remove the voice for several Italian-American families, along with a few Irish, Spanish and Latin ones as well. In fact, the clan has its hands rather deep in the city's restoration, to the point where Weasel finds himself holding unofficial controlling interests in several engineering and architectural cabinets around town.

Following the now ages-old structure of the Syndicate to a tee, Weasel also covers all of this in the guise of legitimacy. His attention to detail and protocol is second to none in this area, and you could argue that he knows his Penal and Criminal Codes as well as some of the best lawyers in town. Exceedingly careful in his investments and other opportunities, he's created the Donnola chain not to serve as a convenient front, but out of a genuine interest in his native culture's food and table-related traditions. As he's honest about the baseline behind the existence of his front, you don't quite feel like it's a front to begin with. His restaurants are profitable, they receive decent-to-excellent critics, they're regularly updated to keep up with the times – everything he does outside of the Commission can be traced to a strict adherence and respect to the country's laws. This goes to the point where oddly enough, while he's defrauded the State using other methods, he never fails to mutter or spit curses at fellow restauranteurs who brazenly used their activities as a means to evade taxes.

It'd be simple enough to summarize this by saying that Weasel's adherence to laws is selective, but honest. He'll bend and break whatever needs to be bent or broken for the clan's sake – but don't expect him to tolerate the same displays out of people who do it for selfish profit. His sense of criminal honour is highly developed, and there's quite a few things he holds should simply never be done. Unjustified murder, prostitution in the classic sense of the term, thievery between associates, debased criminal acts and many more all count as his personal no-nos.

What he lacks, however, is the classic Sicilian code that characterizes the oldest guard of the Cosa Nostra. This manifests as cultural and social openness – as he has nothing against supernaturals, non-practicing religious folks, atheists, LGBT individuals or superpowered sorts and openly welcomes their contributions – but also an understanding that there's money to be made out of pretty faces spouting educated words.

As such, he resents the appellation of “pimp”, but the fact is that his ritzy bordellos and escort agencies are discreet enough, but obvious in what they offer. Biggs might not fit the definition of a pimp because of how his girls are healthy, consenting, usually well educated and handsomely paid and treated; but moral watchdogs and authorities in town would ask if they should start to call ducks pigs, if they're supposed to handwave the mustelid's sex trade because he's inordinately considerate with his girls. In any case, this is obviously born out of his well-known attraction to the female form.

While he isn't lecherous and never tries to go for prizes that are clearly well above his pay grade, metaphorically speaking, his eyes do liberally wander about in most social gatherings. His ideal women tend to be educated enough to hold an interesting conversation, but also possess the one needed smidgen of licentiousness or carelessness that makes them consider an off-colour comment about their breasts as a reasonably genteel compliment. Social rumours speak of his fairly explosive sex life, but no one has ever been able to confirm or deny this detail.

In any case, the only things most of anyone tend to be able to grasp about Biggs is that he's a bon vivant, a generally interesting socialite with a curiously keen finger on the world's sociopolitical pulse. There's a tiny bit of swagger to him, and plenty of easy smiles. He tends to speak plainly and crudely – a leftover from a fairly rough childhood – but generally uses this blunt approach to deliver interesting observations. Only largely known for his legitimate activities, he stands as one of the city's philanthropists and has always been able to deftly defuse any and all accusations of being associated with or leading a criminal syndicate. He might talk about Omertà behind closed doors, but the fact is he's never given in to obvious tells; like pleading the Fifth or laconically stating he doesn't remember this or that incriminating detail. Being very careful to leave the general public feeling either muddled or supportive of his case, he's unusually capable of turning a righteous moral crusade against his activities into a spurious and scandalous attempt at libel. More often than not, the joke's been on people who were convinced they held the one piece of damning evidence.

Only Archie Holden has ever been able to make Weasel's mask of legitimacy crack; but the Battle of Hope and the passing decades have given him more than enough time to patch them closed.

All the details fit. His declared revenue is kosher, his agenda checks out as do his alibis, and he doesn't operate out of easily accessible public spaces. The old mafia trick of stuffing rolls of cash into your socks won't cut it, and each and every one of his girls also maintains a more paying employment elsewhere. He doesn't flaunt what he has, but there's always this definitive sense that there's more to this guy and to the wealth he manages to surround himself with.

Of course, his restaurants do tend to be rated four Michelin stars and tend to cost an arm and a leg to eat at – but even with his being at the head of a service-providing corporation, folks at the DEA are itching to figure out if there's any way at all to peel back the brazenly effective public life he puts forward.

“Spaghetti and corpses” is a popular axiom used to simplify the mob's cultural affects. The pasta certainly does check out in Weasel's case, as his Yelp reviews and his ample spare tire both testify – but the corpses? As far as anyone knows, Weasel is amongst the more careful dons on the East Coast. “Spaghetti and banishment from the family and clan” seems more likely, with corpses coming into consideration only in cases of extraordinarily grave offences against the Commission.
Goals: to lead the Biggs family forward and ahead, and to stand by those that constitute it, no matter the cost. Being formally inducted into this specific mafia group is to be allowed into a very tight-knit group. The Biggses take care of each other and give one another as many opportunities and leg-ups as possible. Within the confines of the blood, Weasel shows himself to be particularly sensitive and to be possessed of a strong level of empathy. If Cousin Alfie's kid with a learning disability needs a new teaching aide, he'll pony up the few hundred thousand needed without question. If a struggling family member needs help making their resume look fairly hot for prospective new employers, he'll be willing to offer internship time to the lucky bastard on some level of his chain's hierarchy – and to creatively bill him as an actual Director of Finance, for instance. Fast-forward a few years and voilà, the family's little squirt is off on his own.

Simply put, Weasel would do anything to protect, preserve and improve the clan's standing on American soil. As family is blood and blood is life, all he really cares about is exploiting Hope for all its worth. Within that ethos, absolutely anything goes.

Outside of it, Biggs falls within the purview of your average hard-working and successful entrepreneur. He'll display all the right social and moral hang-ups about reprehensible things and keep the kind of company you'd expect someone who's rich but not too stuck-up, idiotic or macho to actually be keeping. He'll also be open to meet new people, as his entrepreneurial spirit has him consider that even someone with the most unflattering of all resumes can be worth something to someone.

If anything, he's managed to turn Hope into the first of a series of East Coast turnpikes for the circulation of drugs. His city is the gateway through which all marked shipments pass and was able to dethrone New York and Montreal in this regard. All he has to worry about now is that he doesn't peeve off the wrong Quetzalcoatl or say or do anything that would make Pablo Escobar's legacy either pull the plug or try busting a cap in his ass.

History: the Biggs clan – initially referred to as Bizzi – has been present in Hope since the nineteen-twenties. This diverse and colourful cast of Italians has shaped the city as much as any other ethnic group, and its first notable American patriarch would become notable for his refusal to let other groups and gangs dilute the city into a disguised battlefield for vendettas and turf wars. Criminal historians would agree that Alfonzo Bizzi, who would be naturalized as Alphonse Biggs in Chicago, would be one of the country's first and instrumental figures in the widespread establishment of the idea of organized crime. A close collaborator of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Alphonse was noted as being a shrewd and calculative anthro who stuck obsessively close to the ideals put forward by the first official American crime syndicate.

As such, there was never any doubt as to what Weasel would grow up to be. His father, Jack Biggs, had never amounted to much more than a captain, as he lacked the restraint to operate more than a single cell of armed and capable individuals. A known alcoholic, he was rather problematic for the rest of the family. Unsurprisingly, the more conservative and recognizably Sicilian bunch didn't take too kindly to the idea of a booze hound operating Hope's operations. This lack of approval soured Jack's mood incessantly and pushed him to abuse of his wife, Mary, and their son. While Jack's influence would leave a slight mark on the mustelid, the boy was largely raised by his grandfather. Under the former capo's supervision, the battered and scrawny young rodent became a lean and lanky loan shark who capitalized on his love of food as a convenient cover and on his unusual abilities as a bookie to collect money. Of course, his activities followed in the sake of his official admittance into the family's ranks. In a moment that would remain etched in Weasel's mind forever, a burning religious icon was passed around between him and two older cousins. As in the old Sicilian rites, he swore fealty to the bloodline and promised to uphold the Cosa Nostra's ideals.

Of course, part of this had been a show, put in place to appease the occasional Sicilian relative that got sent over. The American mafia having never been huge on social conservatism, entire set-pieces had to be prepared with complicit human and supernatural elements in front of the visiting watchdogs. If one thing was made clear as a result, it was that the Sicilians weren't family. Weasel's blood might have been Italian only a few generations ago, it didn't change the fact that he'd grown up in Rhode Island and that having fanged, Protestant, Hindu or gay soldiers and troop leaders had never bothered him or Alphonse. Hitting close friends for the sake of foreign approval was hard – even if said friends had been warned.

If anything, the experience only strengthened his desire to see all of the city's criminal groups unified under one structure. Big Al kept telling him it couldn't be done; that Winters had his way of doing things and that he wouldn't abide by anyone telling him what to do. Of course, Alphonse was right. He knew, having been a part of the Castellammarese War. No; the only way to get Winters or anyone else to cooperate wasn't to crown yourself Boss of all Bosses – it was to offer your own structure as a crutch or backup.

Before being able to present the idea to anyone, however, time needed to pass. By the turn of the millennium, Weasel had passed through the syndicate's rungs, he'd weathered the death of his mother and the indignant demise of his father, and been formally recognized as the new local don. Alphonse's own death would come shortly afterwards. Much to the relief of everyone involved, the family pride hadn't been hurt with the replacement of its name for another. Several incumbent capos had stepped forward, but Alphonse hadn't been grooming his boy for nothing.

Already established as a flourishing entrepreneur, Weasel had Donnola's success to work from, which provided him with tremendous amounts of political and social pull. Buying out floundering architecture firms and putting his own people in charge wasn't too hard a thing to accomplish, which allowed him to rake in the millions resulting in the end of the lengthy process involving the city's reconstruction. He'd been elected as boss without much fanfare, and would go on to accomplish his set goals just as simply.

Of note, however, are his meeting with Esk Zainall and the Holden-Biggs Trial of 1999. The Drifter had already been trying to establish herself as a fairly exotic madam in the wake of the Battle of Hope's influx of aliens; and a quick infusion of cash from an easily smitten mustelid facilitated the process. She'd become the only woman for whom he'd ever bother to pull out all the stops and the only woman for whom he'd be able to wait. While marriage obviously doesn't fit him and he knows it, he's quite glad for the less affected circumstances in which he can afford to be with her. She is, simply enough, the one person he doesn't see himself dumping, ever. Going steady is beyond him, but not having her listening ear is something he would sorely miss.

As for the Holden-Biggs trial, it involves the rodent's prosecution following his murdering an associate. Weasel went on record to state he'd found child pornography on the victim's computer, and that it wasn't the sort of stuff even pedophiles would keep around. Archie didn't disregard the don's claims, but the defendant's defence of the protection of basic moral values wouldn't stick. Murder hadn't been required, the judge agreed – calling the cops on the victim would have been enough. Attempts to have the sentence repealed failed, and Weasel was initially sentenced to serve out ten years to a life imprisonment. Money and several greased palms commuted this sentence to a very quietly delivered twelve months in jail. His reign began in earnest in the Post-9/11 world, which saw antigang efforts spring to life across the nation.

Sensing the tense and difficult climate as being something all sizable outfits would suffer from, he finally had the proper springboard to propose his idea of a syndicate to Jimmy Winters. Putting the prospect of shared resources forward as well as the idea of more relatable judges and representatives in specific cases, he managed to sway the aging Irishman in his favour. Sarvin took a bit more convincing, however. A few years passed, and the sight of the three larger gangs in town co-operating pushed the smaller groups into an acceptable behaviour. The Commission's shared ethos turned out to be simple enough : you can abide by their rules or stay the Hell out of Hope. Banishment and quick notices to treat the banned individuals as pariahs became the standard procedure to deal with troublesome numbers who didn't warrant a more muscled approach. Push too long and too hard even after being rejected, however, and the Commission's warnings to stay out of town would gradually escalate.

To date, this system has allowed for Weasel's criminal activities to remain on the down-low and for the totality of the city's criminal element to essentially protect itself from the law, superhumans or simply overeager villains who occasionally think to grab a share of the city's resources for their own ends.
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