Saint Lucia

🇺🇸The fictional city of 'San Lucia' in the American South.
A city named after Saint Lucia, a martyr who did not abandon her faith even when her eyes were gouged out.
🇮🇹A port city built by Italian immigrants.
The old town, like the French Quarter, is adjacent to Little Italy and the Latin barrio.
The humid air of the American South blends with the strong Italian blood.

🍕'Old Quarter'
The old town district, the center of the story.
Ruled by the Italian mafia 'Rosso Family'.
Narrow cobblestone alleys wind like a maze, and laundry hung from second-floor balconies casts shadows on the street.
⛪️Lazarus's 'St. Mark's Church' is on the outskirts of this area, halfway up a small hill overlooking the harbor. Climb the hill and you're in God's domain, descend and you're in the human swamp.

🪨'Scala dei Santi (Stairway of Saints)'
A sloping road leading down from the church to the town, one hundred and twenty stone steps. Old woman Rosaria sells flowers on the landings.

⛲️'San Gennaro Square'
The heart of the old town. Cafes and cheap eateries line the square around the fountain. A playground for children.

🍝'Trattoria di Mamma Lucia'
A trattoria serving Italian home-style cooking.
The owner, Mamma Lucia, is sixty years old.
Even the young members of the Rosso Family eat pasta politely in this restaurant.

📒'Carlo's Pawn Shop'
A pawn shop and information broker.
Payment for information is not always cash; sometimes it can be settled with an interesting story that Carlo desires.

🍺'Bar Purgatorio (Purgatory)'
A hangout for those who can go neither to heaven nor hell.
A jazz bar open only at night.
The bartender, Dante, is a giant former sailor.

🚢'Dock Row'
The port district, the artery of crime. Drugs, guns, human trafficking—everything that comes from the sea passes through here.
The longshoremen's union becomes a criminal organization network.
Men who move containers by day transport other 'cargo' by night.
🚦'Waterfront Drive', a single road running east-west along the harbor.
At night, sodium lamps glow orange, casting long shadows of containers on the asphalt.
Trucks run day and night, mixing exhaust fumes with the smell of the sea, creating a unique, lingering air in the back of your throat.
In summer, humidity exceeds ninety percent, and shirts stick to your skin even at night. Frogs croak. Foghorns groan in the distance.

🥩'Bayou Junction'
A truck stop and diner at the eastern entrance of Dock Row.
The owner is Moses Jefferson (nicknamed Big Mo), a giant black man and former longshoreman.
In his sixties, but still strong. He's a living legend of Dock Row. Unlike Carlo, he doesn't sell information but occasionally leaks it to those he trusts.

🎤'The Last Call'
Looks like just a honky-tonk.
The owner is Redford McLane (nicknamed Red). A former Marine, he lost his left leg to a landmine and wears a prosthesis. He runs a mutual aid network for veterans and looks after former soldiers working in Dock Row.

⚓️'Warehouse Nine'
A derelict warehouse at the far end of Pier 5. In reality, it's the hub for Dock Row's black market transactions.
The manager is Judge, real name unknown. He holds the title of treasurer for the longshoremen's union, but in reality, he's the mastermind behind the underground economy of Dock Row.
He does business with both the Rosso Family and Los Santos. He belongs to neither, yet is needed by both.

🌉A canal runs between Old Quarter and Dock Row.
Three bridges span it, with the central bridge, 'Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs)', being the main thoroughfare.
Crossing the bridge changes the air; cobblestones turn to asphalt, balcony flowers to rusty containers, the smell of Mama's cooking to diesel exhaust, and sighs escape.

🚗'Midtown', a newly developed district. Glass high-rises are starting to be built, outwardly a success story of urban redevelopment. In reality, a new power, the Central and South American drug cartel 'Los Santos', is buying up the district using front companies for legitimate businesses.
🛣️The central axis is 'Lucia Boulevard', a six-lane avenue with palm trees planted in the median. At night, it's lit with LEDs.
Moving from other districts, it feels like you've wandered into another country.
High-rise office buildings and condominiums line both sides of the avenue.
Air-conditioned air, sanitized lobbies, a city with the same temperature everywhere, no smell.
Fundamentally disconnected from the smell of garlic wafting from Mama's kitchen, or the stench of diesel and rotting fish.

🏙️'Corona Tower', a 32-story, the tallest mixed-use building. Shopping mall on the lower floors, offices in the middle, penthouses on the upper floors. The owner is Hernán El Vargas.
A 48-year-old Mexican man who leads the San Lucia branch of Los Santos, he wears silver-rimmed glasses and custom-made suits.
His name appears in newspapers as a key figure in San Lucia's redevelopment.
Behind the scenes, he integrates the drug distribution routes from Central and South America into the logistics network of his legitimate businesses, with drugs hidden among trucks delivering organic food.

☕️'Cafe Liberta'
A stylish third-wave coffee shop. The private room in the back serves as a meeting room for Los Santos. This is where Vargas first meets new collaborators—politicians, police officers, judges, real estate agents.
The barista, Marisol, is a twenty-something Colombian woman with a dazzling smile and friendly demeanor.
In reality, she is Vargas's eyes. She remembers the faces of all the customers who come to the shop and immediately reports any unfamiliar individuals.

🕶️Rosso Family: An established mafia controlling the old town.
Don Rosso is seventy years old, a traditional Italian, and attends Sunday mass every week. A mafia of the old school who values order in the city and uses violence as a last resort.
He has an unspoken non-aggression pact with Lazarus. They do not interfere with the church. In return, Lazarus does not meddle in the family's internal affairs.
However, this does not apply if a member of the family harms one of Lazarus's clients.

⛴️Port Network: More of an ecosystem than an organization. Loosely connected by the longshoremen's union boss, smugglers, information brokers, and brothel madams.
Lazarus buys information from this stratum. Conversely, when people from this stratum fall into dire straits, they sometimes rush to the confessional.

💊Los Santos: They have money, manpower, and brutality. They have no respect for old rules.
They are beginning to disrupt the balance of San Lucia.
For Lazarus, they are the most likely opponents to clash with.
This is because the methods of Los Santos—using children, human trafficking—infuriate Lazarus.