by Gabby Grace
What we did this afternoon was so hot, I know we both felt it. I know it. It was too good not to want to do it again. I don’t know, but I can’t keep beating myself up and worrying about it. One thing I do know is I have plenty of work to do, so I make a cup of strong-brew tea – my favorite, Bengal Spice – add a little honey, and fill my metal travel mug. I take it to my office in the back of the house and hunker down for a few hours of work.
I like the quiet. Nighttime is my favorite time to work. Opening a window and letting the succulent breeze blow the sheers around, I can smell the tropical plants and the aroma of the ocean air just a few miles east of here.
Double-clicking to open a few files on my computer desktop, I pull some information up on an upcoming event for a new client. It’s a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new gentleman’s club called Fave. I suspect this client is into some unsavory things, but he also has bottomless pockets, and money talks. My conscience is clear. If it’s not me they hire, it will be someone else.
The strip club itself has top-of-the-line design and character – I’ve seen the plans – and it looks like something you might see in Las Vegas. It will be lit up with a bright, multi-colored neon sign, and strong floodlights will shine back and forth, almost like a casino on the Vegas Strip, to attract attention from miles around. My client has investments in Vegas and he wants to bring that same feeling of flavor and excitement into Miami. Smart guy.
I’ve already notified the press and sent out media releases. We’re making it a VIP event, so attendance is by invitation only. I’ve selected the media outlets that will most likely give us the most favorable coverage and draw high ratings. Sorry bottom feeders, but go take a hike. This is big time, and only serious players will be there.
I’ll be there wearing fuck-me heels and looking the part of the high-powered, sexy diva running the show, the one coordinating all the little parts that make it all come together. Veranda, my personal assistant, and Teague, my very capable stager, will be there decorating the ribbon-cutting area, placing the flower arrangements, and staging the inside reception area for the guests. Teague’s been with me a long time and knows exactly what I want.
There are just a few days until the event, and I have a lot of loose ends to tie up. I had met with the client in New York City just prior to flying back here earlier today. He’s an Italian man in his late forties, always dressed in dapper suits and exuding a young, ambitious energy that tells me he can do anything he puts his mind to.
He hit on me, but like I have done so many times, I brushed him off without insulting him, or at least I think I did. I have a no dating policy with clients, and I take that seriously. It didn’t matter whether I liked him or not. Business is business.
And it’s no use. Whether I have work to do or not, Vito keeps creeping into my thoughts and I can’t push him out.
Shit.
Where could he be headed tonight? To see another woman? It’s none of my business really, but I can’t help but be curious and feel a little insecure about being turned down earlier.
My pussy quivers at the mere thought of him. I can’t ever remember having a physical reaction just thinking about a man.
9
Vito
I leave the Mustang around the corner, behind an old, beat-up red pickup truck. I park it so it’s pointing in the direction of the highway in case I need to make a quick escape. This is the docks area of the city, highly industrial with easy access to both the ocean and the highway. I’m no crime boss that makes these types of decisions, but this makes perfect sense for a heroin distribution location.
Dressed in all dark clothes, I walk down the dingy side street strewn with litter. I’ve memorized the address on the post-it note after using the GPS on my phone to find it: 141 Macawber Street.
It’s a one-story, warehouse-looking building built of weathered brick with a single steel, riveted door in front with no knobs or windows. The many arched windows, probably eight-feet in height that flank the door on either side, are painted black from the inside and fronted with thick iron bars to keep out any curious people. It looks like something out of a nightmare.
I walk along the front of the building, getting the eerie feeling I’m being watched. I know it now. I continue on anyway, feeling the security of the 9-mil in my back waistband that Lucenzo slipped to me just before I left him at the strip club.
There it is. The red metal door. I glance at my watch, 10:59. Perfect timing. I need to scale a metal six-foot high chain-link fence-type of gate before I can get to the door, and the thought crosses my mind that this shit was a lot easier when I was a teenager. Over the top and down on my feet now, I position myself next to the door with my back to the wall, all senses on high alert. 11:01.
Fuck. I just need to be patient. What’s minutes seems like hours, as I hear every sound, smell every smell, while constantly scanning with my eyes in both directions for any sign of danger.
I hear something. Some latches being unlocked, maybe? I put my ear up to the cold steel of the door, and just as it clicks open, I put one hand on the handle of the gun. I’m ready to draw at a moment’s notice, depending on what this guy, whose eyes are visible to me now even though the rest of his face is still hidden by deep shadows, says next.
“You Vito?” he whispers.
No, I’m the fucking Avon lady. “Yeah.” He waves me in. It’s dark, so I can’t really make out his features in the dim light. He’s a heavy guy, short with thick, curly black hair. All Italian, this guy. Like a fucking meatball.
“I’m Marco. Lucenzo said you wanted to poke around.”
“Yeah.” We’re in a darkened type of hallway created by a floor to ceiling chain-link fence. It partially masks the main floor area out in front of me that houses forklifts, crates, boxes, and those large metal containers like they stack on ships. The crates stacked in front block us from the view of anyone out on the main floor.
My voice is a hoarse whisper. “What can you tell me?”
“Well, stay out of sight. Everyone knows everyone here, and if you’re spotted, you don’t know me. You’re on your own at that point.”
“Right.” What does this guy think I am, a fucking amateur or something?
“I’m in shipping, which is this area. There are loading bays around the back in that direction, and this is where everything gets processed when it’s either coming in or going out.” He points out different places to give me an idea of the layout.
I point to a pallet of boxes, each one with a label featuring a photo of a kitten on a bed and stamped comforter. “Are these all comforters?”
“Yes. These shipments come in from overseas, I’m not sure from where. We spot-check the boxes for quality to make sure they contain what they’re supposed to. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Heroin.”
“Exactly. There’s an office at the top of the metal stairs and across the catwalk. It’s heavily guarded during the day, so I wouldn’t take the employee way in. Considering it’s night, I don’t know if anyone’s up there or not.”
“Is there another way in that you know of?”
“There are some rather large HVAC vents that run along the ceiling and connect with the office. You’re kind of big, so I don’t think you’ll fit. Somebody smaller would.”
“Anything else?”
“It’s all I know. There are a few guards making their rounds now. I can show you how I get in and out when I want to go undetected.”
“Sure.”
He turns toward the back of the warehouse, walking down the length of the chain-link fence, crouched low and tiptoeing like a ninja, and then he turns left at the end and enters the first door on the right. He leads me through a darkened room, lit only by the red exit signs on the right wall, and takes me to the back corner behind some large, dusty wooden crates.
“I chiseled out the mortar on these bricks. You just have to restack them once you remove them. This leads to the alley you came i
n through.”
I can see where there was no mortar on about twenty bricks, and at a quick glance, no one would notice anything.
“Last thing. There’s an alarm on the doors and windows, but no motion sensors. They had to shut those off so the guards could roam around freely.”
I shift from one knee to another, as it hurts to kneel for too long. Old football injury. “How many guards?”
“Maybe three or four? Not sure.”
I extend my hand out and he shakes it with his meaty, sweaty palm. “Thanks, Marco. What’s your plan?” I subtly wipe my hand on my pants to get that shit off.
“I’m outta’ here. My shift starts at 6:00 a.m. Good idea if you’re out of here by then.” Marco quickly starts unstacking the bricks, trying to be quiet as he meticulously takes one at a time and places it on the concrete floor.
“Thanks, Marco. I’m going to have another look around.” I make my way back out to the main area and see some movement off to my right. Guard.
This guy is built like a brick shithouse and has an automatic weapon – maybe an AK47 – on him. He’s not as large as my boy Tony from back home, but he’s strong, filling out his black slacks and tight-collared shirt until they’re about to burst. If you could sculpt a mafia tough guy out of clay and make him look as authentic as possible, this is your guy.
I stay tucked down low, keeping out of sight, behind some boxes and crates that are stacked haphazardly on the cold concrete floor. Somehow I need to work my way in around him. I can’t see shit, so I have to feel my way around behind the stacked crates until I think he’s straight in front of me. His heavy footsteps confirm this as he must have stopped for a second, then started walking again. Through a crack between two boxes, I can just make him out from the waist down.
My hand brushes up against something leaning against one of the crates. Clatter. It’s a fucking crow bar, and it crashes to the floor. The guy’s head looks like it’s spinning on a swivel, and he’s making his way toward me with murder in his eyes. He looks oddly like the Terminator with his precise walk and unmoving head.
Fuck me… think Vito.
I grab the crow bar and throw it about fifteen feet to my right, and the guy, like a stupid mafia tough fuck would, goes directly to the sound without even thinking it could be a diversion.
I want this guy alive, so I dig my feet in, explode out of my low crouch, and accelerating into a run, come up behind him like in my old football days, covering the ten yards in no time flat. My shoulder plows into his lower back and side just as he’s turning around. He lets out that telltale grunt I’ve heard from so many guys after I’ve just nailed them good. I can still hear my high school coach yelling out, “That was textbook, Vito… good technique.”
We both hit the floor with an audible thud, my arm getting stuck awkwardly under his huge frame, and with pain shooting through my wrist, this is not time to pussy out from a minor injury. His eyes are wild now, bugging out of his head, the muscles on his face straining from patrol duty mode to an all-out brawl for his life, within seconds.
I take advantage of the stunning blow and still have surprise on my side. While wrestling on the cold concrete, rolling over and over in an alligator-type of death maneuver, I throw three vicious overhand rights that find their mark on his chin and cheekbone. I could feel bone when my bare, pointy knuckles met his surprised face, and I know I cracked or broke this fucker’s jaw, and good.
I’m on top of him, sensing the kill, and just as I raise my fist above my head for what would be a series of brutal combinations to his chest and face, he tucks his knees up to his chest, gets his feet square with my stomach and snaps them straight, sending me hurtling out of control backwards, causing me to crash into some sturdy, wooden crates. White-hot pain shoots through my left shoulder as I spin off them and fall to the unforgiving concrete.
Getting to his knees now, he spins the AK toward me, and I either come up with a brilliant move, or I’ll be sleeping with the fishes. I explode toward him, leaving my feet with a lunging, flying knee that catches him square in the shoulder and jaw. It sends him hard backwards, his head making sickening contact with the concrete floor, bouncing back up as my elbow finds his eye socket, knocking him flat-out cold.
I grab the AK47 automatic rifle off his prostrate body, and just then, I hear urgent voices from behind me and to the right, coming from an area I haven’t explored yet. I dive behind some crates, the pain searing like lightning through my left shoulder.
They come up on their buddy, ducking low to get a look at him, and at that precise moment, I rise. Before they can raise their weapons, and just as the eyes of one of them meets mine, I spray them with a few wicked bursts of rounds that simply shred them where they stand. Torn flesh, tattered fabric, and spurts of gushing blood turn the scene crimson red, like a fucking massacre. I count seven bullet wounds on one guy before he hits the floor with a blood-curdling scream, face first, dead in midair.
The other guy – a scrawny fuck wearing black jeans and a now shredded white t-shirt stained with splotches of red – is crawling away from me. He has wounds to his stomach and thigh that leave trails of blood in his wake across the dirty concrete. He’s using his arm to pull himself across the smooth floor, but without much luck. I run to him, push his torso down with the sole of my shoe, and put the AK right up to the back of his head, pressing it into the base of his skull, before growling, “Are there any other guards?”
He doesn’t speak, but rather gurgles up blood in a foamy mess that seeps from the corner of his mouth and pools on the floor next to his cheek. Coughing and sputtering now, he’s in the death throes, his body tightening, then relaxing, as he slips from this world into another.
Fucking mess. Now what?
I collect all the weapons I can find, my tired arms full of them, and stash them in the nearest corner behind some packing materials. If any other guys show up, I don’t want to just hand them an arsenal of weapons. I pat these guys down, taking a few extra clips from dead guy number two’s jacket pocket, just in case.
Short on time and despite my exhaustion, I have to move quick. With a slow jog, I make my way to the metal stairs, climb them two at a time, my legs feeling like lead weights, toward the catwalk that will give me access to the office. As I reach the top, I run along the grated walk, my shoes clicking loudly against the hard metal. Instinctively, I keep scanning all around me in all directions with my eyes and ears as I move.
The office door is metal, just like the side doors, but at least this one has a doorknob. I take a few large steps back, turn my face away, and spray a few quick bursts into the knob. It falls to the floor, the door swinging open just slightly. I move in.
There are windows all around, with metal woven into them, probably to make them shatterproof and impenetrable if broken. I pull out my cell and turn on the flashlight, rather than flipping on an overhead light that could draw attention. The light cuts through the dank darkness revealing a few old gray file cabinets, dated counters that extend around three sides in a U-shape, and a few laptops.
I rifle through the file cabinet drawers and find nothing. It’s pretty sparse in here but for the laptops, so I take them both, tucking them under my arm as I make my way out of the office.
I hold the AK in my right arm, cupping it against my side with my elbow, and ready to fire at anything that moves. It’s all quiet right now, but I don’t want any surprises.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I put the computers down on the edge of a pine crate and make my way over to some boxes that have images of large comforters on the side. I pull one box open with my free hand. Comforters. Knowing what will happen when I rip it open, I pull my six-inch blade out of my ankle sheath and slice through the fabric anyway. Small plastic bags filled with heroin spill out onto the floor, scattering in every direction.
I break open another crate with the crowbar, the sound of splintering wood echoing through the cavernous warehouse, and find
more boxes of comforters. Making my way back to the area from where the two thugs came, I notice two large, shiny, metal roll-up loading doors illuminated by a dull, overhead industrial light, with maybe 4-watt bulbs.
Scanning with my cell phone flashlight, I spy a desk in one corner and not much else. I rifle through the drawers, only finding basic office supplies and nothing of value. With some effort because it sticks, I slide the top drawer open and find a few sets of keys, but nothing else.
What now, Vito? Without breaking open every crate in here, you can safely assume they all contain heroin-filled comforters. On the streets, this stuff must be worth millions. I can’t carry all that heroin, and even if I could, what am I going to do with it?
When workers and mafia bosses start showing up tomorrow, they’ll see the bodies. Even if I dump them and mop up the pools of blood off the floor, there will still be the undeniable fact that three guys disappeared off the face of the planet. At the very least, they’ll move the operation to another location and then we’re back to square one.
Then, I’m struck with an idea. I’m going to torch this fucking place. It will be the biggest kick in the balls to the Sirico’s, and I’m going to be the one to deliver that crushing blow. Besides, the most important thing to me is these drugs don’t hit the streets.
I look around me for something to light on fire that will stay lit long enough to catch all those boxes and crates. There must be cleaning supplies around. I find a janitor closet tucked in a dark musty corner and quickly locate what I need. A few aerosol cans of some red spray paint and a match should make for a DIY flame thrower.
Me and my buddies used to gather this stuff, find some old rocks, pull them up, and then we’d torch all the bugs and slugs and shit underneath. It got out of hand when we turned it on dumpsters, but hey, we were stupid kids.
I remember there was a lighter inside the jacket pocket of one of the guys I offed. After collecting that, his lifeless face staring back at me, prepared to haunt me on some future night when I can’t get to sleep, I pile some old rags from the cleaning closet inside one of the cardboard boxes filled with packing paper, and then push all the boxes on the open floor near the center box. I flick the lighter a few times until I see a warm, steady flame. I extend my hand way out in front of me, depress the nozzle, and in an instant, my mini flame thrower ignites the rags inside the box.
