by Alan Lee
I checked my watch. Going dancing at this hour? It was nine-thirty, for heaven’s sake.
I looked at the tower above, lights burning on the fifth floor. Inhaled a deep breath and shrugged inside my sports jacket, taking comfort in the pressure of the gun on my hip. Tonight the air felt warm.
A man stepped out of the shadows. Like he’d been waiting for me.
“Hola Big Mack.”
“The heck are you doing here?” I asked.
“Going to the meeting,” said Manny. He was in jeans and a brilliant white linen shirt, sleeves rolled up, looking like the handsomest man on earth. “With all the jefes. And you, lowly gun for hire.”
“How’d you discover the time and location?”
“You try to hide it. But I am a sneaky bastard, muchacho.”
“You can’t go up there. You’re a federal marshal. They’d crap a brick. These guys are organized crime.”
“But I am corrupt as hell,” he said. “You go, I go.”
“I have to do this, Manny.”
“Sí, lo sé. And I have to go too. We amigos. You know what I am without you? Not a lot.”
He stuck out his hand.
We shook. I hoped I wouldn’t regret it.
“Okay. If you insist.”
“Let’s go get shot in the ass, señor.”
We climbed the concrete stairwell to the fifth floor of the tower.
A guy named Freddie stopped us at the stairwell. He looked like a professional bodybuilder wearing a green suit. He had a tattoo of a dragon on his face. On his FACE. His head was shaved.
“Mack,” he said. “One gun only. House rules.”
“That’s all I need,” I said.
He stared at me blankly.
“Did I sound like Clint Eastwood? Cause I tried,” I said.
He did not smile. Nor did the dragon tattoo on his face.
He patted me down.
“Cell phone stays in a basket outside the room,” said Freddie. He voice was scratchy, as if someone had hit him in the throat. A lot.
“That’s new.”
Freddie shrugged, bunching his trapezoid muscles up to his ears. “Gotta be careful.”
I acquiesced, dropping my iPhone into a basket full of other phones.
Freddie turned his eyes to Manny.
“You too, marshal.”
Manny said, “Simon, huge honky. But maybe you tell Marcus I’m here. I do not think I am on the guest list.”
“Manny the spic,” said Freddie. More of a rasp. “The marshal. You’re expected.”
Manny grinned.
“Good to be wanted. I like your dragon.”
Manny placed his phone in the basket and submitted to inspection. Freddie let him keep his .357 but apprehended the ankle revolver.
The fifth floor was unfinished construction. Down a long hallway, several high stakes poker games were running. Music and laughter drifted our way, the games hidden from view by exposed 2x4s and heavy vinyl drapes and sporadic drywall.
Freddie led us to a room I’d previously visited twice. It was the size of a small apartment with the walls removed, dominated by a plush poker table and chairs. The floors were exposed subfloor, except for the rugs. Several lamps were set up. Drinks could be had from a small bar.
The men stood when we entered.
Manny and I were the last to arrive. Already at the table…
Edgar, owner of the building and also proprietor of several gun stores. A sharp black man, he dressed in black suits and his hair had fancy zigzag designs. He ran illegal firearms up and down the east coast. I’d also heard the rumor he strong-armed votes in the recent congressional election.
Clay Fleming, country gentleman dressed in cowboy boots and hat. He manufactured and sold illegal moonshine, and moved all manner of paraphernalia up and down the interstate.
Dexter, the shooter and shadow Darren Robbins brought with him.
Darren Robbins, pimp, prosecutor, prick.
Toby Moreno, professional hitman, swollen face, great hair.
Big Will, Marcus’s right-hand man, a boss in the cocaine trade. Big biceps, red hoodie, bored expression.
And Marcus Morgan. Dressed in black and silver.
Marcus indicated we take the two seats to his left.
“Game’s about to start,” he said in that rich growl.
“Marcus,” said Darren Robbins pointing at Manny. He kept his hand low, like shooting from the hip. “I know him, that’s the federal marshal. Get him out of here.”
“I invited Manny,” said Marcus.
“I don’t care, he’s not part of this.”
“Yeah. He is. My party, my rules.”
“Marcus, listen to yourself,” said Darren. “He’s a cop. You’re breaking the commandments. This is an official Kings convening.”
“You guys have commandments? Are they written on stone?” I asked. “If I look directly at them, will I glow?”
Marcus indicated us with a tilt of his head. “Manny, this is your call. Your boy August, he requested this meeting. He’s in it deep. You stay and you’re in deep too. I can’t and won’t protect either of you, depending on what we decide. Other words, you can walk away. If you stay for the convening? Maybe you can’t.”
“I’ll stay, señor. Looks to me like a fun crowd. We play pinochle?”
“Jesus Christ,” said Darren and he looked to Toby for support. “This is amateur hour.”
Toby agreed. “What’d I tell you.”
Marcus addressed the men at the table. “Manuel Martinez, he’s a cop but the man don’t play the do-gooder game. He’s done favors for us. He let Big Will’s brother go. I owe him. What happens here, stays here, he knows.”
Clay Fleming tilted his cowboys hat back a bit and said, “Good by me. More the merrier.”
“No,” said Darren. “More the merrier? Hell no. This isn’t camp. This isn’t a recreational t-ball team. We have rules for a reason. We don’t let police into the inner circle and we don’t let their friends in either. Both these junior varsity jokers, they’ll be loose ends. And Marcus, the Kings will hear about the breaking of commandments.”
“My word is good, Señor Robbins. Better than yours, I bet, eh?” said Manny and he grinned. “Maybe you shut up.”
Darren scanned the room, outraged, the way I bet kindergarten teachers often did.
Marcus said, “Like it or not, he’s part of this.”
“A mistake,” said Darren. “A lazy mistake. Might cost you.”
Marcus stood as stoic and cool as usual. But I detected some heat under the veneer. “Who’s gonna make me pay for this mistake? You? Could try. Not sure what good a law degree do you.”
“This is official Kings business, Marcus. The Kings. We don’t screw around with Omertà.”
Omertà, I knew, was an ancient code of silence.
“Yo August,” said Big Will, who had sat back down and appeared on the verge of sleep. “What’choo call it guys flex on each other? Sword fighting?”
“Saber rattling.”
“That’s right. Maybe we quit the saber rattling and play cards.”
Dexter, Darren’s shooter, casually set his gun on the table.
Darren Robbins addressed Manny. “Inspector August is a dead man, marshal. You can’t stop it. You stay to play cards, you probably are too.”
“I stay. Like in blackjack. You get it, pendejo?”
Darren shook his head and fiddled with the fat golden ring on his right hand. Looked like a college signet, maybe law school.
Big Will snickered.
During the pregnant pause, Carlos walked in. He wasn’t as big or muscular as Freddie (no one was), but his t-shirt was tighter and his head equally shaved. He took his place behind Marcus and quietly crossed his arms.
Edgar, silent up till now, nodded slowly at Dexter and his firearm. “Get yo fuckin’ gun off my felt. I got rules too.”
Dexter, without taking his eyes off Manny and me, replaced it inside his shoulder
holster. “Bonnie and Clyde, you know how to play?”
I said, “We prefer Thelma and Louise. And we play a little.”
“I look around this table,” said Darren. “And I don’t see one real card player. Nothing but rookies here.”
Some of the ice in the room was breaking. Tensions lessened a little. We took our seats.
Edgar placed two decks of cards on the table.
We threw money at him and he slid stacks of colorful chips our way. Minimum $500. Maximum $1000. Mere change to these crime lords but they didn’t play for monetary purposes. Twas all pride.
I threw in $500. And gulped.
Manny tossed in a big wad of twenties and received $1000 in chips.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
“Carlos, my man,” said Darren Robbins. “Get the music. I could do with some Sinatra.”
Carlos went to the Bose speaker system and soon Frank was crooning.
Moreno stood to get himself a drink. Got one for Darren too, both drinking straight scotch.
Without being asked, Carlos brought me and Manny a couple Old Fashioned drinks.
Big Will drew the first deal. All the sounds were magnified. The pitter-patter and hiss of the shuffle. The clacking of chips. Clinking of ice.
Fly me to the moon.
“How’s the chicanery business?” I asked Clay Fleming, the Floyd cowboy. “People still drink alcohol?”
“Yeah buddy, but you know what’s a stick in my craw? Uncle Sam loosening the regulations on liquor. Moonshine is less exotic. Moving less jars these days.”
“Fewer.”
“What?”
“You’re moving fewer jars,” I said. “These things are important.”
Clay grinned and shook his head.
“I found me a new racket. Moving cigarettes."
“That so,” I said.
“Know how much a pack costs in New York City? Fifteen bucks. I gettem here for under five. I fill a bus with a thousand cartons and sell’em in a day. Ten packs to a carton. I clear fifteen thousand per trip. I can’t move them bastards fast enough.”
“Good man. Making us wealthy,” said Darren.
“God bless nicotine,” said Toby and he raised his glass to Clay.
We played several Texas Hold’em hands in silence.
We were each dealt two cards, and five cards were placed on the table with rounds of betting between. A player could bet any amount he wished.
Toby bet just like he punched—aggressive. So aggressively that Marcus trapped and busted him on the third hand. Five hundred dollars gone in under ten minutes. He grumbled about luck and bought five hundred more in chips.
After twenty minutes, Marcus said, “Much as I’d like to play cards without business, that isn’t why we convened. We here to talk Calvin Summers’s stake in the business. And we here to talk about his daughter.”
Darren stood and removed his sports jacket. He draped it carefully around the back of his chair. Rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, and undid the top couple buttons at the neck. “And,” he said. “Don’t forget our guest of honor, the gumshoe for hire. We’ll determine how best to execute the son of a bitch.”
“August, you called for this,” said Marcus.
Edgar began dealing the next hand. Fip, fip, fip went the cards and they skidded across the felt.
“Why don’t you begin.”
I nodded at Marcus. Closed my eyes and tilted my head back a little. “Marcus Morgan, I want to thank you for helping me organize this meeting here today.” I shrugged and held up my hands. Talked in a raspy voice. “How did things ever get so far? I don’t know. It was so unfortunate. So unnecessary. Tattaglia lost a son. I lost a son. We’re quits.”
Toby made a snorting noise.
“Bastard’s quoting The Godfather,” he said.
“He what?” said Edgar.
“That’s the Godfather, the big scene with Marlon Brando,” said Toby. “Guy thinks he’s funny.”
“August,” said Marcus. “Maybe don’t be an ass.”
“Just so everyone is up to speed,” I said, dropping the impeccable impression of Vito Corleone. “Last week, Veronica Summers dumped Darren’s sorry ass.”
Dexter tensed. In my periphery, I thought Big Will did too.
Darren smiled to himself, looking at his cards. He played it cool but reddened.
I said, “She’s renounced her role as prostitute for your goon squad. I’m here to negotiate her complete release from your farcical claim to her.”
“Lies,” said Toby. “You got no proof. She don’t want out.”
Marcus leaned forward. Maybe only one degree, but it felt significant. “Veronica told me she’s out. And you know it. You come here talking about the commandments? We speak only truth to each other, that’s a commandment. So either you talk honestly or you keep your got’damn mouth shut.”
To my surprise, Toby looked a little abashed.
I didn’t understand the hierarchy of the Kings yet, but Marcus was no underling.
“Negotiate,” said Edgar. “You said negotiate for her release. Explain.”
“Darren claims Ronnie belongs to him. He says she’ll either keep sleeping with whomever he decides or he’ll kill her.”
Darren spread his hands to the table, like appealing to reason. “One does not simply revoke his or her status in the underworld. Veronica Summers cannot walk away on a whim. Not even if there’s a wannabe tough guy, a do-gooder private inspector filling her head with visions of roses and a bogus innocent life.”
“You demand some sort of yubitsume ceremony?” I asked.
“You bit what?” said Clay Fleming, pulling a handful of chips his way, won with a pair of queens.
“Yubitsume,” explained Darren. “A ritual of the Japanese Yakuza. You want out of the Japanese underworld, you chop off a finger. That’s the penalty. It marks you. And no, Veronica doesn’t leave so easily.”
“Easily?” said Manny. “Ay dios mio.”
Edgar said again, “Negotiate. August, what you got to negotiate with?”
I pointed at Dexter. Then at Darren. Then Toby.
“These three ass clowns beat the hell out of Ronnie. Three men, one woman. She had to drag herself to urgent care. And now they’re threatening to coerce her return to prostitution. So I’m going to kill them.”
Edgar’s eyebrows rose above the level of his sunglasses.
Clay made a whistling sound.
I heard Carlos shift his weight behind me. The subfloor creaked.
“Maybe two of them,” said Manny. He raised his hand like a kid in a classroom. “Me? I call dibs on at least one.”
Marcus released a soft sigh. He knew.
He knew Manny and I had crossed into territory we wouldn’t come back from. A place where he couldn’t protect us.
I said, “You three gentlemen back off Ronnie, I’ll let you live. That’s the deal.”
“Tell me, August,” said Darren Robbins. He and I were playing a hand, only the two of us remained in. He slid in a big bet, maybe two hundred dollars. “What kind of man are you?”
I glanced at my cards. I was weak.
“I’m a man who doesn’t bluff,” I said. I folded—tossed in my cards and let him win the pot. “But I also don’t lose.”
Darren turned over his two cards—he had nothing. He’d been bluffing.
“You don’t belong at this table. I’m a man who gets what he wants.” He pulled the winnings his way and began stacking chips. “You see this? This is your money, inspector. A shame, you have precious little to begin with. But I will take it all.”
“Does that mean you surrender?” I said.
“That means, no deal, rookie. You threatened me in front of the gathering. Your fate is sealed. You should’ve been aced last week but Marcus cashed in some credit. Two diamonds’ worth. God knows why.”
“One of us is gonna die, huh,” I said.
“One of us.”
“Mercutio’s soul is but a li
ttle ways above our heads,” I said, quoting my favorite play from high school. “And either thou or I or both must go with him.”
Toby frowned. His face was still swollen and the motion caused his left eye to close. “The hell does that mean?”
“Thou wretched boy,” said Darren, completing the line. “Shall with him hence.”
“How about that? You can read,” I said. “I assumed you still looked at picture books.”
There was a lull. We played several more hands. No one spoke, like the first round of a fight had ended and we were getting our breath. Marcus won a big pot off Big Will. Toby took one off Dexter.
Marcus said, “So you two assholes gonna kill each other. That’s squared. Now we talk about Calvin and his assets.”
Clay Fleming said, “Calvin’s pot still growing? What’s-his-name still tending the fields?”
“Rueben, and yes. Acres of the shit,” said Marcus. “Represents millions. And it belongs to Ronnie Summers. Time being, let’s focus on that. She inherited a variety of investments, but we only worried about the fields of hash.”
“Isn’t one of the things she inherited,” I asked, “a seat at this table?”
Marcus and Darren glanced at one another.
“More or less,” said Marcus.
I said, “How great for Ronnie, her possessions being parsed in absentia, so her feeble mental powers won’t be taxed.”
“This is a table for grownups,” said Darren. “For men. Veronica Summers is a toy. She’s a toy I dangle in front of colleagues to keep them loyal, to keep them horny. She doesn’t get to sit here.”
Darren and I were in another hand together. I’d just taken a fair amount off Dexter, who fumed. It put me around $700.
“Enlighten me. Why not?” I asked. I had a pair of 10s and I made a modest bet.
Darren immediately raised me. Something like $360. “Because I said so.”
“Ah. The airtight reasoning of bad elementary teachers,” I said.
“She’s an item. A thing to be used. Everyone at this table has had her. Or did you not know that? You didn’t, did you. How sad. You think she loves you? She’s a professional slut. And she doesn’t. Get to. Sit here,” said Darren.
I did not know everyone at the table had had her.
I took a moment to collect myself.
“Your ears are turning purple, gumshoe,” said Darren. “That a tell? Or are you about to cry?”
