Josh frowns, looking offended as he turns back to the boyfriend. “I apologize for my ignorance, but who exactly are you, and why should I care that you’re even breathing?”
I smile to myself. He should be an actor! He’s very useful in a fight, Josh is, but he can nearly always defuse a situation just by talking. He’s the diplomatic one in the relationship.
“You look ridiculous,” he says. “And it’s offending me and my friends. So why don’t you take your old, faggy friend over here and piss off?”
Did he just call me faggy?
I make a move to stand, but Josh signals for me to stay seated. I do, holding up my hands in resignation.
“Okay, you’re like, what, eleven years old or something? When I was your age, I respected my elders. And if I stepped outta line, my old man would clip me ‘round the ear.”
“He’d what?” he asks, looking confused.
Josh slaps the guy on the side of his head—not hard enough to knock him over, but with enough force that he knows about it. He quickly does the same to the guy’s friend standing next to him.
“I was fighting for Queen and country before you were a glint in the mailman’s eye, you pointless sack of shit,” he continues. “Now come back when your balls have dropped and I might take you seriously.”
The guy’s raging, but as Josh stands and squares up to him, he quickly backs down, as does his friend. They slowly walk back to their group of friends, tails between their legs. Josh sits back down and looks over at the group. The remaining guys are still trying to look intimidating in front of the girls, while the girls seem divided—some look disgusted, either at their friends’ behavior or ours, I can’t tell, or are smiling at us both and giggling.
“And as for the rest of you,” Josh continues. “There’s a valuable lesson to be learned here: never interrupt a man and his air guitar.”
One of the girls catches his eye and smiles, which he returns—more out of politeness than anything, I think. But one of the other guys sees it and rushes over to her, grabbing her arm and dragging her back around the pool table.
“Hey!” I shout, getting out of my seat having gone from zero to pissed in a heartbeat. I vaguely hear Josh say something behind me, but it’s too late. The flash of anger has taken control. I walk over, right into the middle of the group and up to the guy with his hand on the girl.
“Let go of her arm,” I say.
The girl’s an attractive young blonde with naïve green eyes and a red dress her father probably doesn’t know she wears in public. She yanks her arm free, rubbing where he’d gripped it, and looks at me.
“Thanks,” she says, her voice sweet-sounding and full of innocence. “But it’s alright, he meant nothin’ by it, I swear.”
She has an oddly soothing effect on me, causing the sudden explosion of rage I’ve just felt to quickly subside. I back down a little and look at him, pointing a finger close to his face in a silent warning. I turn and walk back to my seat.
I take three steps and hear someone shout out behind me. I turn around in time to see a pool cue coming at my head. Instinctively, I raise my left hand and catch it mid-air, the impact stinging my palm although I know my face betrays nothing. The guy who swung it stands still in complete shock, his eyes wide as fear creeps slowly across his face. I stare at him, allowing the entire scene to freeze.
With a sudden movement, I yank the cue out of his hand, take it in both of mine, and break it across my knee. Again, the impact stings my leg, but I don’t acknowledge it. I throw both pieces of the broken cue to the floor and without any warning, whip my right leg up, and kick him hard in the stomach. The impact takes him by surprise, and both his legs fly out from under him. He face-plants on the ground, making a groaning noise as his head bounces off the sticky floor. I take my time as I look around the rest of the group, eyeballing every one of them around the pool table in turn before walking off and sitting back down next to Josh.
He looks over at me with an eyebrow raised again. I simply shrug.
“What?”
5.
MEANWHILE…
OCTOBER 1ST, 2014
09:31
Jimmy Manhattan had spent the past week recovering in San Francisco General Hospital, after Adrian Hell had thwarted the attempt on his life. Despite his wounds, and his advancing years, he was making an impressive recovery, and he hoped to be discharged in the next couple of days. The surgery to remove the two bullets had been successful, and any internal damage had been minimal.
He’d seen on the news that the FBI had averted Danny Pellaggio’s attempted attack, although he knew, in truth, it would’ve been due to Adrian Hell’s intervention. He thought about everything that had happened leading up to the events surrounding Pellaggio’s demise.
Manhattan had struggled to deal with his deception and, understandably, with being shot. He had spent the last year of his life working with him, funding him, training him, putting him in touch with the right people to make his plan happen... He felt used and betrayed, although he knew it was probably never his original intention for things to end the way they did. Pellaggio had been weak, and lacked vision. It would’ve only been due to Adrian Hell’s intervention that made him decide to sever his ties with Manhattan. His mental illness was his downfall, often clouding his better judgment; he’d known that Adrian would’ve been able to exploit that in order to stop him.
That was no way to do business.
He thought about Adrian Hell, too. That man was capable of immense things, and now the opportunity had presented itself to wipe the slate clean and start afresh, he was smart enough to know that, despite his instinct to seek revenge, it’d be far more beneficial not to have someone like him as an enemy. Some things were simply best forgotten about, even if they were never forgiven.
Outside, the sun was high and warm, and the sky was clear. The light was beaming in through the slits in the blinds. He sat in bed reading the morning’s newspaper. There were still articles detailing the attempted attack on the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien.
He realized he was also a little disappointed. He’d expected great things from his partnership with Roberto’s son, but sadly it wasn’t meant to be. Still, he had plenty of money saved and invested, as well as his own reputation to work with. He’d be back on his feet in no time.
There was a knock on his door, disturbing him from his thoughts. It opened, and a nurse walked in. She was a large, dark-skinned woman in her forties, with long, braided dark hair tied in a large ponytail.
“Hey sugar,” she said. “How you feelin’ today?”
“Very well, thank you,” he replied.
She moved to the end of his bed and flipped through his chart, intermittently nodding at the information.
“You doin’ alright,” she reported. “You in any pain, sugar?”
He shook his head. “There’s a dull ache in my shoulder, but nothing of any concern. I feel fine, honestly.”
“Good. In that case, I think we can get you out of here. How does right now suit you?”
She gave him a big, friendly smile, which he reciprocated as much as he could.
“That’s excellent news, thank you.”
The nurse replaced his chart and left to make the preparations.
In no particular hurry, he returned to his newspaper, to finish reading a particularly interesting article in the business section. But he found his mind wandering to thoughts of what would happen once he left the hospital…
11:35
Manhattan stood in front of the mirror in his room, fastening his tie. His bloodstained suit and shirt had holes in them where he’d been shot. He looked at the poor condition of his clothes with frustration as he straightened his tie and stepped into his shoes.
He regarded his reflection for a moment. He was fifty-four, and the years had been less than kind to him. He conceded that it was mainly self-inflicted due to the life he’d chosen to lead from a young age, and he had no issue with his looks. He was old e
nough to not care about such trivialities. He used his hands to smooth down his thinning, gray hair. His dark, deep-set eyes looked back at him impassively.
He had a second chance now. Any ties he once had to the Pellaggio name were dead and buried, simply because every member of that family was now dead. What was left of the organization was in limbo, and the opportunity to seize control was his for the taking. He had people who were loyal to him, and it wouldn’t take him long to establish himself as the next man in charge. He could run the business single-handedly, having had previous exposure to most areas of it while working for Roberto.
He turned and walked out of the room, heading to the front desk, where he was given all the obligatory paperwork to complete, prior to discharge. It was the same nurse from before, and she seemed genuinely happy to see him up and about.
“That’s everythin’, sugar,” she said, taking the last of the completed forms off him and shuffling them on the desk to make a neat pile. “You need anything else before you go?”
“Actually, it’d be a big help if I could borrow your telephone to make a call before I leave,” he replied.
“No problem, honey—it’s just over there.” She pointed to the far side of the semi-circular reception desk, where a phone was standing on its own at the end.
“Thank you,” he said.
He walked over and dialed a number from memory. It picked up after a couple of rings, and he said, “It’s me.”
“Mr. Manhattan?” The somewhat surprised voice belonged to his trusted associate, Paulie Tarantina, who had assisted Manhattan for many years during their mutual service to the Pellaggio’s. “Sir, we heard what had happened to you, but had no idea how to come and get you without drawing more attention to ourselves. Under the circumstances, we—”
“Paulie, it’s fine—there’s no need for apologies. What’s done is done, and we can all chalk the last twelve months up to experience and move on. Now listen to me very carefully. Danny’s dead. He went behind our backs, and it blew up in his face. I want to head home, regroup and look to rebuild the family.”
“Just tell me what you need, Mr. Manhattan.”
“I’m just about to leave the hospital in San Francisco. But I think it’s time to re-locate the business to somewhere new, so it can flourish without any ties to the past. I need you to arrange a flight and connecting travel for me. There’s an old business over on the East Coast that Roberto kept legitimate. I’ll head there, and once I’m settled, I’ll call you with farther instructions.”
“No problem,” said Tarantina. “So, where exactly are you goin’ to, Boss?”
Manhattan paused for a moment before answering, thinking things over one last time before committing to the path he was about to go down.
“Allentown, Pennsylvania.”
6.
MEANWHILE…
14:08
Wilson Trent rode in the back of his car with Bennett next to him. Duncan was riding shotgun as the driver navigated the busy streets. The previous day, he’d instructed his two enforcers to look into Tommy Blunt’s life—search his home, look through the financial records, everything—to find out where the fifteen grand a month had been disappearing to.
He knew he could rely on his men to resolve the issue. They had always proven themselves his most capable, and most loyal, employees. That was why they’d been by his side as his personal protection detail for so long. And while it was a trivial amount of money in comparison to what he had and what he earned, that wasn’t the point—you didn’t steal from Wilson Trent and get away with it.
And sure enough, after a few hours of investigation, they came up with the answer. It turned out, Blunt had been stealing the money, but not for himself. Duncan had found bank statements in the apartment documenting the fifteen grand going in on the same day each month. But, strangely, it was transferred back out a day later. He’d spoken to Bennett, who was searching the premises where Blunt worked at the time, and they began trying to figure out why Blunt would’ve been stealing money off Trent for someone else.
They concluded that he wouldn’t, based on his loyal service over the years, so Duncan went away to look into whose bank account he had been transferring the money to, while Bennett reviewed the security tapes on the premises to see if anyone had visited Blunt around the times the transactions took place.
Another hour or so later, and they had both come up with the same name.
Caroline Dawson.
She had a seat on the Pittsburgh City Council, and she had been on Trent’s payroll since taking the position three years earlier. She had visited Blunt on the day the transfers had taken place, and sure enough, the money was moved to her bank account.
Duncan and Bennett took this to Trent, who immediately arranged an appointment at her office for a meeting. They explained to him that Caroline Dawson was, in some way, blackmailing or extorting Tommy Blunt. There was no other contact, either historically or recently, between the two of them that could offer an alternative explanation.
The driver pulled up outside the Council Chambers on Grant Street. Trent looked out of his window at the building for a moment before speaking.
“Wait here,” he said to the driver, before addressing his enforcers. “You two, come with me.”
He stepped out of the car with an uncharacteristic grace and walked purposefully up the steps, past the commemorative statue of Richard Caligiuri, and entered the building.
The entrance lacked the extravagance you would’ve expected from the outside, settling instead for a standard front desk with a wooden counter and paneling, just inside the doors on the right. The area was simply a wide corridor, with elevators at the far end and offices along both sides, interrupted by a single corridor about halfway down that led off to right, accessing other parts of the building.
Trent completely ignored the receptionist, striding intently past the desk and across the tiled floor to the elevators; the heels of his black, polished shoes echoed around the large entrance area. She stood, about to say something as they past her, but Bennett shot her a glance that made her reconsider.
Trent knew everything about everyone he had on his payroll. For example, that Caroline would be in the building that afternoon because of a monthly Council meeting scheduled at four p.m, and that she would be working out of one of the temporary offices the members of the City Council used when on the premises.
They took the elevator to the second floor and turned right as the doors dinged open, walking along a narrow corridor, illuminated by the gray light shining through the large windows along the left wall. After a few moments, Trent and his men came to the office and, without knocking, he thrust open the door and stepped inside.
Caroline was a slightly overweight woman in her late forties. She had light brown hair with gray streaks running through it, cut into a bob that rested on her slight shoulders. Wearing a purple dress suit and matching shoes, she was sitting on one side of a large table that took up most of the room. Opposite her were two men, both in suits, who Trent didn’t recognize. He presumed they were other members of the City Council, but they didn’t concern him in the slightest.
“You two,” he said to them as he entered. “Fuck off.”
They opened their mouths to protest, but it only took one step forward from Duncan to convince them to leave. Both men looked at Caroline, gathered their papers off the desk, and left in a hurry.
Caroline remained in her seat, trembling slightly as she opened and closed her mouth, debating whether to say anything. She glanced at the two men with him, before resting her gaze on Trent himself, who remained silent, staring long and hard at Caroline, watching her fight to maintain some level of composure.
Duncan and Bennett moved over to the left of the room, standing behind her and leaning against the wall, which was plain and painted in a sickly cream color.
Trent took a seat at the table opposite her, leaning forward and clasping his hands in front of him as he rested on the desk.
“Caroline,” he said, his voice calm and professional. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
She glanced at the table for a second, frowning with thought, and then shook her head. “No,” she replied, a faint quiver in her voice. “I was going to report anything of interest to you later in the week, once we’d had our Council meeting this afternoon, but looking at the agenda I don’t think there will be anything noteworthy.”
Trent smiled, both impressed and frustrated at her convincing response. “Let me re-phrase my question. You have something to tell me, don’t you?”
He glared at her with his cold eyes, the professionalism giving way to anger. She looked over her shoulder at his two enforcers, who were looking on with disinterest at what was happening. She looked back at Trent.
“Is this about Tommy?” she asked.
“It’s more about the money he was stealing from me to give to you,” he said. “I want to know why.”
She put a hand over her mouth and started crying, looking down and sobbing uncontrollably. Trent rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, expressing his impatience.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Trent. You have to believe me!”
“Oh, I believe you’re feeling very apologetic now you’ve been caught. But I want to know what you and Tommy Blunt were up to. You can either tell me now of your own accord, or my associates over there are going to make you tell me. And that… wouldn’t be pleasant.”
“Oh, God!” she shrieked before bursting into tears again.
Trent sighed and stood, walking around the table to stand next to her. He placed his right hand on her shoulder, like a concerned friend, and looked down.
“Caroline, you’ve been a big help to me over the last couple of years, and I’ve paid you well for it. Haven’t I?”
She nodded eagerly but remained silent.
“And you know that if you ever have a problem, with anything, you can come to me with it, and we’ll sort it together, right?”
One Last Bullet: An Action Thriller (Adrian Hell Series Book 3) Page 3
