Guns ’n Money

by Rob Volver

Copyright 2012




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Chapter 1: Homecoming

The second I climb out of the taxi, the bullets start flying. Dropping my suitcase, I duck down behind the cab, reaching inside my jacket for a piece, but then remember I haven’t carried a piece in years. Hell, I haven’t done anything in years.
The bullets keep right on coming, a half dozen of them now, snapping against the road and the sidewalk all around me and the taxi, spitting up chunks of gray and black. I’m looking around for a better place to hide when the cabbie decides he doesn’t need to get paid and he peels off, his ride kicking out black smoke and leaving me in the open.
A couple more bullets. This time right around me. I don’t even have time to look who it is doing the shooting. I can feel the tiny shrapnel pieces of concrete darting up from the sidewalk and lancing against my cheeks.
I duck and roll, heading for an alley between two brownstones. I forget my luggage. A few more bullets are right behind me, missing by inches, crashing into the alley’s walls.
As I enter the cool darkness of the alley, I spin around and look out. Across the street there’s a black sedan peeling out, leaving a trail of black rubber. I can’t make out the driver, but for just a moment I spy the shooter, some guy in a black hoodie hanging out the passenger window on the other side. He’s sporting a 9mm, the bastard. He gets off one more shot, the bullet going wide, then the car is gone.
I breath softer for the moment. Welcome back to the big city, Jackie. Not even out of prison a day and you’re already getting shot at. But who the hell would want me dead? I mean, I been locked away for five years, and as far as I know I ain’t got no enemies on the outside. At least none living, anyways.
I’m just about to regain my nerve and stroll back to the sidewalk to retrieve my suitcase when a sports car the color of a baboon’s ass slams on the brakes and screeches to a stop on the street in front of me.
I nearly turn and run as the passenger door is thrown open.
But then I hear a familiar voice, one I hadn’t heard in a long while. Tony Olivetti. “Jackie! Get your ass in here!”
Smiling, I glance out the end of the alley. Nobody else is shooting at me and no more dark sedan in sight. Keeping my head low, I chug out to the sidewalk, grab up my suitcase and dive into the Italian sports car.
Squirming around in the seat until I’m sitting straight, I toss my case in the back and slam the door closed. Looking to the driver, I say, “Good to see you again, Tony. I think you just saved my ass.”



Chapter 2: First Day on the Job

Tony leads the way and opens the door for me as we stroll into the room. The place is an office, elegant by anybody’s standards. Thick carpet. Glass windows from floor to ceiling on the left. A big, heavy desk of rosewood in the center of the room. On the right a dark wall with paintings by Rembrandt or Picasso or somebody.
Behind the desk sits a hefty guy in a pinstripe suit, dark glasses covering his eyes, one ear glued to a phone. He looks up and nods at me and Tony, then holds up a hand. After a few seconds, he says something into the phone, then hangs it up.
This guy is Roberto Carcinni, an up-and-coming guy in the Family. Not a top dog, you got to understand, but one of the younger fellahs working his way up. From my vantage point, he’s already pretty high up, but I’m smart enough to know that in the bigger scheme of things, Roberto is still small fry compared to the big boys of Chisel City.
“Tony!” Roberto shouts out as he tugs down his sunglasses and drops them on his desk. He stands and comes around the desk, giving my friend Tony a hug.
Then the two turn and look at me.
Tony points to me. “This is Jackie Cruise, boss. I was telling you about him.”
Roberto nods. “That’s right. Jackie, I hear you just got out.”
“Yes, sir,” I say. Always be polite to the guys with money and guns.
“What they get you for?” he asks.
“Armed robbery,” Tony says before I can answer. “Can you believe that shit?”
The two chuckle, then Roberto says to me, “What were you holding up?”
“Appliance shop,” I say with a grin. “Was supposed to deliver some goods to your brother that night, but ... well, I didn’t make it.”
Roberto’s older brother Francis had been my boss back in the day, but Francis had moved up in the world, was a lot higher on ye olde totem pole than Roberto now was. My guess was the Family wanted me back in, probably trusted me after I’d kept my mouth shut all these years, did my time like a man and never snitched on anybody, even when all it would have taken was a word and I would have been out on the street in a matter of days. Of course, I’d probably have been dead soon after, but it is what it is. I kept mum, thus earning some respect. That was probably why Tony had been there to pick me up near the bus stop. I don’t know where I would have gone if Tony hadn’t picked me up, but I would have thought of something, maybe an old relative’s place until I could have gotten myself straight. With Tony showing, I was already ahead on getting myself straight. I was here, in front of a Carcinni, which meant they wanted me back in. Which meant I had a job. Things were looking up.
But who the hell had been shooting at me?
The question is almost on my lips as Tony says, “Boss, you wouldn’t believe what we ran into.”
Roberto gives him a quizzical look.
“Just as I’m pulling up,” Tony explains, “a couple of asshats take a few shots at Jackie here from across the street.”
“That so?” Roberto asks me.
I nod. “Yeah. Don’t know why.”
“That would be the Sardonas,” Roberto says with a frown.
“Sardonas?” I say. “I knew a Frankie Sardona back in the day, but he and I never had any bad blood between us.”
Roberto grimaces. “Things have changed, Jackie. Times are different now. Frankie Sardona used to be one of our best boys, but he went solo two, three years back. Built up his own team. Now he thinks he can force his way into the racket, add his own name to that of the Family.”
“But why the hell was he shooting at me?”
“Probably didn’t want us to get our hands on you,” Roberto says. “Hey, look, you and me, we never worked together, but my brother and Tony here have nothing but good to say about you. So I wanted you in. Frankie and his boys probably got word of it, or maybe they just knew you were getting out, and they decided to take you down before you could get to us. Sort of a preemptive strike, if you know what I mean.”
I nod. Yeah, sure, I knew what he meant. But if Sardona was behind this, it seemed an awful bold move to try to take someone out in the middle of the day on a public street, especially when that someone had possible ties to the Carcinni clan. If Frankie was willing to do that, then he must think he’s got a lot of clout, a lot of power. He must not have feared the cops or the Carcinnis. Or he was batshit crazy.
Roberto pats me on a shoulder. “Look, Jackie, how about Tony here gets you set up someplace decent, then we get you doing a few low level jobs? Just some light work to get your hand back into things? Then in a few weeks, if you feel up to it, we’ll get you back into some heavy hitting? What do you say?”
“Sounds good to me, Mr. Carcinni.” What else was I going to say?
Roberto turns to Tony. “You got this?”
“I got it,” Tony says. “Jollie Lemon has been needing a hand, so I figured we’d help him out.”
“Good.” Roberto pats my shoulder again. “You boys need anything, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Yes, sir,” Tony says.
“Yes, sir,” I repeat.



Chapter 3: Long Time No See

Jollie Lemon is an old-time fence. He’s been around for years and years, running an honest pawn shop up front of his place while in back he sells and trades in goods not so honest. I did some work with him from time to time back before my government-funded vacation, so I had no qualms dealing with him again.
Before we get to his place, however, Tony gets me squared away in a little room little more than a flophouse owned by the Carcinnis on the east end. It isn’t much, just a futon on the floor with a couch and a TV so ancient it weighed a hundred pounds and had a black and white screen. Still, it’s a place to sleep and to hang between jobs.
Stowing my one suitcase and snagging a key from the landlord, Tony then drives us to Jollie’s shop. We find the old guy working his front desk, a handful of customers roaming about looking at Jollie’s wares, mostly video games and electronic equipment, but a few pieces of jewelery and even a few legal guns.
“Holy shit,” Jollie says with a grin as Tony and me saunter through the front door. “If it ain’t Jackie Cruise. Boy, I heard they locked you up and threw away the key.”
I can’t help but smile myself. Jollie and I don’t have a long past, but we always got along real well, and he’s done business with enough other people I know. “Old man,” I say, walking forward to shake his hand, “they had to let me out. Told me they needed to make room for your ugly puss.”
There’s some general laughter all around, Tony getting in on the funny action for a few minutes, but then Jollie calls over one of his workers to take the front desk before pulling us with him through a hanging curtain into the back room of his shop.
That back room is a small legend in some circles, and deservedly so. There’s wall to wall shelves holding everything from table saws to raw diamonds in a safe to sawed-off shotguns. I couldn’t name all the stuff lining those walls. All of it’s illegal. Some of it’s hot, some of it’s merely under the radar. But all of it would land Jollie in hot water if he ever got caught. Fortunately for Jollie, he’s got a lot of people looking out for him, including more than a few cops on one payroll or other. One big thing Jollie has going for him is that he’s like Switzerland, a neutral party. Everybody comes to him for business, so nobody puts the screws on him. And everybody is willing to shed a little green from time to time to keep the cops from looking too close at Jollie’s store.
The old man comes to a stop in the middle of his small warehouse and turns around. “So, what can I do for you gentlemen today?”
“I hear you need a job done,” Tony says, his eyes snaking towards my own. I nod along with him.
“Yeah, that I do,” Jollie says.
“What? You need us to pick up something for you?” Tony asks.
Jollie waves off the question. “Nothing like that. I got plenty of stock for the moment. But I got this customer, he’s a lawyer. He’s behind on his latest payment. Way behind.”
“Lawyers make good money,” Tony says. “He should be able to pay.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Jollie says. “Bum comes in here and wants a top-of-the-line stereo system, but he don’t want to pay big bucks for it. I get him one. It’s a little warm, I got to admit, but not too hot. It won’t be missed, in other words. But this bum, he says he can’t pay full up front, so I figure him being an upstanding officer of the court or something, he’s a good bet. I let him open a line of credit. Now he’s missed a payment, by weeks.”
I tch, tch and shake my head. “That’s not like you Jollie, giving out credit to an unknown and all.”
He shrugs. “What can I say, times is tough for everybody. Or maybe I’m just getting soft in my old age.”
“So, what you want us to do?” Tony asks. “Break the guy’s legs or something? Retrieve your property?”
Jollie waves us off again. “No, no. Nothing so drastic. At least not yet. It’s his first missed payment, so I’ll go easy on him.” He reaches in a shirt pocket and pulls out a little card like a business card, hands it to Tony. “That’s his address. Just head over there and bust out a few windows, show him who he’s dealing with.”
Tony glances at the card, then hands it off to me. I recognize the address. Over in a nice part of the city. Not my usual turf, but I know the lay of the land. I’ve broken in my share of places over there.
“Here.” Jollie reaches over to a shelf and picks up a claw hammer, hands it to me. “Take this. Put a little fear of God into the guy. But don’t hurt him. Not yet, anyway.”
I smile as I take the hammer. It’s been a while. This could be fun.
Because Tony’s sports car is too well known among the thug crowd, we decide to take one of the old box vans Jollie keeps around back of his place. Cruising across town takes some time with the traffic and the lights, giving me and Tony a chance to catch up some. I’d been so busy since landing out of the joint, we hadn’t really had a chance to talk. I find out not much has changed with the old crowd, some guys moved up in the Family, some guys went missing, a few are locked away. It’s interesting to find out about a few new characters on the scene, but there aren’t really any major surprises.
At one point, I bring up being shot at on the streets. “I’d like to know who the hell took those shots at me.”
Tony only nods as he drives. “You and me both, partner, but the truth is, we’ll probably never know. Probably just some low-level stooge Sardona keeps around for the light work.”
“Like us?” I ask.
He grins. “Yeah, kind of like us.”
After an hour, we finally cross over a bridge into a nicer part of the city, and soon we’re cruising along suburbs with green front yards, dogs yipping on the porch, soccer moms jogging up and down the streets.
“Don’t worry,” Tony says while patting the dashboard. “In this heap, we look just like any other utility worker or delivery guy.”
But I’m not worried. I’ve done this sort of thing plenty of times before.
Soon enough we spot the address ahead, a red German sedan parked in the driveway in front of an open two-door garage.
“That’s the place,” I say, pointing.
Tony steers over and parks a couple of houses down. “Let’s do this quick.”
We’re out and jogging toward the house, not quite running because that might bring us too much attention. In jeans and T-shirts, we blend in well enough, not looking like the thugs we are.
In front of the house, we shift, me heading for the German car, Tony heading toward that open garage. I just make it to the car when the front door opens. Out steps a heavyset guy in a nice side, his comb-over haircut looking a little out of style for his young but flabby face. The guy doesn’t look happy.
“Who the hell are you?” he yells at me and Tony.
Tony only grins, then jogs on into the garage.
“Jollie Lemon sends his regards!” I shout out, then I swing the hammer down hard, busting out the driver’s tail light of the guy’s car.
He screams like a little girl. “My baby! What the hell you doing?”
I swing again, this time shattering the driver’s door window.
“Agh!” The guy keeps screaming like somebody just cut out his appendix. He nearly stumbles off his front porch, rushing toward me, but then I raise the hammer once more and he comes to a halt a dozen or so yards away.
“Please, whatever, don’t hit my baby again, okay?” He’s pleading with me, begging.
“Hey lawyer boy!” Tony shouts out.
Me and the attorney, we both look into the garage. Tony is standing there with a rusty old wood-chopping axe. Then Tony comes charging out, the axe raised above his head.
I swear to God, that attorney’s face turns as white as a dead fish’s belly. He raises his arms as if they would do any good against an axe chopping for his head.
But Tony isn’t going for the lawyer. No, sir. He brings the head of the axe down hard in the center of the car’s hood, making a sound like a giant can opener crunching open a sheet of iron, along with adding a nice new dent.
The attorney screams again, then turns and runs toward his house. Actually, it’s more like a fast waddle than a run, but the idea is similar.
Tony grins at me and I bring my hammer down hard, knocking off the driver’s side mirror.
“Think that’s enough?” Tony asks.
I hear shouting and crying from inside.
“I think he gets the point,” I say.
Then we both run away, hop in the old van, and drive back across the river to our home turf. We laugh all the way. It’s almost just like the old days.
Good times.
But somebody out there took some shots at me, and I don’t like that. Somebody’s got it coming to them. Nobody tries to brush off Jackie Cruise and gets by with it.



Chapter 4: Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution

Jollie pays pretty sweet for the little job we did for him, but I had five years of lost time to make up for. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a flophouse. To help raise a little dough, I hook up with a taxi company owned by the Carcinnis, landing myself one of the yellow cars that can be seen all over the city. It’s a way to make a little extra money while getting the lay of the land again. After I had been gone so long, Chisel City had changed here and there, and I want to refamiliarize myself with the old town. I get to set my own hours, make a little scratch, what could be better?
I had been driving around for a few days, just dropped off some passengers at the airport, when my new cell phone starts ringing. It’s Tony.
“Jollie’s got another job for us,” he tells me.
“Like the last one?”
“Nah. This one’s different. A repo job.”
“A car?”
“Nah. Some rock star’s guitar. Supposedly Jollie picked it up for him special, but now the guy’s not wanting to pay.”
“Sounds easy enough,” I say.
“Maybe, but this guy has security,” Tony tells me. “I picked us up a couple of baseball bats, just to even things up a little.”
“You think we should take a piece?”
“Nah,” Tony says. “That might up things a little too much, draw more attention than we’d want. But Jollie says if we ever want a piece, to head over to Mo’s and pick up anything we want, on Jollie’s tab.”
Good old Jollie. Looking out for us. Mo’s is Mo’s Ammo, the spot for all the Carcinnis boys to pick up their hardware. Mo has been around for ever, as long as Jollie. Like Jollie, Mo runs a straight racket up front, selling home protection stuff to the rubes and the gun nuts, but out back is where the real hardware can be found, sometimes hot and sometimes not, but always available to the Carcinnis for the right price.
“I’ll pick you up,” Tony says.
“How about I pick you up,” I say in return. “A cab will stick out a lot less.”
“Sounds good.”
So I go pick Tony up at his place, a little apartment on the east side not far from my own pad. He’s got the address for this rock star, and it turns out to be one of the swankier hotels downtown.
“We’re not going to get in there carrying baseball bats,” I say as I pull away from the curb, Tony in the back seat so things won’t look out of order.
“Yeah, but we don’t go into the hotel,” Tony says. He’s already got things figured out. “This guy, he’s got a press conference this afternoon. We wait until he’s leaving out one of the back doors, then hit him before he can get in his limo.”
“Won’t he be surrounded by security?”
“Two or three guys tops,” Tony says. “That’s why we got the bats.”
I hope he’s right. These security guys, usually they carry some heat. But what the hell. We live in such a coddling country nowadays, many guys who carry are too chicken shit to pull their sidearms, more afraid of going to jail or looking stupid than doing their job. On the other hand, some of these guys think they’re real cowboys. But again, what the hell. I can use the money, and it’ll be something to do.
“Think he’ll have the guitar with him?” I ask.
“Doesn’t matter if he does or not,” Tony says. “We put a big enough beating on this guy, he’ll want to pay up or shed the guitar.”
We cruise around for a while to kill a little time, get something to eat from a hot dog stand, then head over to the hotel. I park us in the alley around back where the delivery trucks and stuff are parked. Sure enough, there’s a long, black limousine sitting near a back exit.
“That’ll be his,” Tony says, pointing over my shoulder to the limo.
“You want me to pull up closer?”
“No, but be ready to rock and roll when we see that door open.”
It doesn’t take long. A big goon the size of a defensive tackle comes out the back door and glances around. For a moment his eyes fall on my taxi, but then his gaze slides on by. Good thing we came in the taxi, not drawing any undo notice.
The guy says something to somebody inside the door.
Then Tony is out of my cab, his bat held low behind his leg. I follow from the driver’s side, leaving my door open.
That big security guy, he’s smarter than he looks beneath his thick, bushy eyebrows. He yells something inside the hotel’s back door, then slams the door closed.
At this point, I’m thinking the gig is up, but Tony, he keeps right on walking forward while the big guy unbuttons his dark jacket and begins to stroll toward us. I keep my distance from Tony, not wanting to afford this bodyguard guy one nice, big target, but I’m not sure it would make much difference. If this guy draws on us, he’s got us both dead to rights.
But apparently he’s not as smart as I’d given him credit. He lets us get close. Too close.
His eyes dark and narrowed, he opens his mouth to speak, but never gets the chance. Tony lunges with the end of his bat, butting the goon in the jaw. Despite the bodyguard’s size, he drops like a ton of bricks and is out cold.
I giggle. What the hell? I hadn’t thought big boy would go down so easy.
Then Tony is running for that back hotel exit, and I’m right on his heels. I’m not sure why we’re running, ’cause that back door has got to be locked.
Still, there’s the limo driver. He’s stupid, too, and opens his door to climb out. A slam from my bat against the door makes him think twice, and he jerks the door closed and locks himself in.
By this point, Tony is up the few concrete steps to that back door of the hotel. Whoever is on the other side lets their curiosity get the best of them. They had to hear the beatdown going on outside, but apparently they want to take a look to see what’s happening, or perhaps they’re just checking on their boy, the bodyguard who is flattened behind us in the alley.
The door opens. It’s another guard, a tall, slender guy in a dark suit with even darker shades wrapping his eyes. Tony belts the guy in the stomach. The tall, slender guy huffs and puffs but falls to his knees. Beyond, I can see a hallway empty but for a skinny guy with long, shaggy hair; he’s wearing some kind of sequined jump suit like the King. That’s got to be our boy.
Tony is busy hammering away at the bodyguard still on his knees when I slide past them and head toward our rock star.
The guy looks like he’s out of it. I think he’s got to be stoned out of his noggin or something. Doesn’t stop me from smacking him upside the head with my bat. A bit of blood splatters from his now broken nose and he screams like bloody murder. I belt him in the stomach to get him to shut up, but this only forces him back against the wall where he keeps screaming, sounding like some chick in a bad horror movie getting chopped up.
“Shut him up!” Tony shouts out, finished with the guard.
I plant my bat in the guy’s stomach again. This time he drops to his knees.
I grab him by his hair and tug back his head so his swirly eyes are looking me right in the face. “The guitar. Pay Jollie for it or next time we’ll be back with more than just bats.”
I elbow the idiot in the chin, rocking back his head to smack against the wall.
I turn to Tony. “Enough?”
“He ain’t got the guitar, so yeah, let’s get the hell out of here,” he says.
We skedaddle.
One last kick to the big security guy’s head on our way to the cab, then I’m peeling rubber and we boogy on down the road, laughing all the while.
That was fun. Just like the old days. We didn’t get the guitar, but we delivered a message. That should be good enough.



Chapter 5: Surprise, Surprise

A week passes after Jollie pays us and I start to get worried that maybe we did something wrong in not retrieving the guitar. But then one day I’m driving a passenger across town when my cell rings and it’s Jollie.
“What’s up?” I say into my phone.
“Hey, Jackie, can you and Tony swing by my place tonight?” Jollie asks.
“I don’t think that would be a problem,” I say. “Everything all right?”
There’s hesitation on the other end. “Well, I kind of got a situation.”
Uh oh. I don’t like situations. “Look, Jollie, I’m sorry we didn’t get the guitar back from --”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Jollie says with a quick laugh. But then the laugh dies away real quick. “I just need to talk with you guys in person.”
“So we’re cool about the guitar?”
Another quick laugh. “Yeah, that bozo paid up quick the next day. Was glad to send me his money.”
“Okay, cool, then. Uh, I’ll talk to Tony and we’ll swing by tonight.”
“Swell.”
So I talk to Tony and we swing by at night.
It’s not late, though it is dark, and Jollie’s shop is closed up for the night when we get there. We park behind the place and knock on the back door, which snaps open right away, as if Jollie had been waiting right by the door for us.
The old guy sticks his head out and scans the surroundings. “Anybody follow you?”
Tony and I trade glances.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Should we be on the lookout for somebody?”
“Not necessarily,” Jollie says. “Just making sure.”
He backs away then and beckons us indoors. Tony and I follow, and I make sure to close the door behind me.
We find ourselves in Jollie’s back storage room once more, surrounded by tons of gear.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Tony asks, looking a little perturbed. “Jackie told me you called, and it sounds like you were a little freaked out.”
For a moment Jollie doesn’t say anything, like he’s afraid to speak, then he creaks back on an old stool and sighs as if the worries of the world are upon his shoulders. “Look, you guys know I don’t cross anybody. I don’t take sides, right?”
“Right,” I say. And it’s the truth. Jollie has always been neutral, supplying all sides, all the different groups of the Family, and sometimes a few other folks as long as their business never interfered with the Family.
“Okay,” Jollie goes on. “It’s like this. I got a special order today. There’s this guy, he wants a sports car, an Italian sports car.”
Tony’s eyebrows rise up a little. “Go on.”
“Unfortunately,” Jollie says, “the make and model he wants, there’s only one of them in the city.”
Tony and me, we trade glances. We know where this is going. Or so we think.
“The guy,” Jollie says, “he’s one of Frank Sardona’s heavy hitters, name of Mike Varl.”
Yeah, I didn’t expect that, and from the look on his face, I don’t think Tony did either.
“So this hitter wants my car?” Tony asks.
“I didn’t say that,” Jollie says, raising his hands as if to back us off. “He never said he wanted your car specifically, just that he wants one the same make and model and color as yours.”
“Like you said, there ain’t another one in the city like mine,” Tony says.
The old guy nods. “That’s right, and I’m not about to cross you. You know that, Tony. In fact, I shouldn’t even be telling you all this, because it could look like I’m siding with the Carcinnis, which I ain’t.”
“Then why are you telling us?” I ask.
Jollie looks like a man nearly broken. “Because I don’t know what else to do. This guy wants his car, and I was stupid and agreed to get it for him before finding out exactly what kind of car. Now I owe him one, or I’m in bad with Sardona. But, Tony, I sure as hell ain’t stupid enough to try to take your car. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the Carcinnis, but I also don’t want to wind up dead. Get my drift?”
“We get you,” Tony says.
“So what do I do?” Jollie asks as if he doesn’t really expect an answer. “I thought about trying to get a car from out of town, but that costs money, and this guy, if he wanted to pay full price, he would have just bought one legit, ya know?”
Yeah, we know.
I swat Tony on a shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, you know of anybody else with an Italian job like yours?”
“In town?” Tony asks.
“No, no,” I say. Jollie already cleared that one up. There ain’t no other car in the city like Tony’s. “I mean, you wouldn’t happen to know somebody not in the Family who has one? Isn’t there a club for guys with sports cars or something?”
Tony thinks for a minute, then, “Sorry, nope. The things ain’t exactly easy to come by. Most of the people who drive one are sitting pretty with their piggy bank, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, if there’s not another one nearby,” I say, “then there’s only one other thing to do.”
“What’s that?” Jollie asks.
“We take out Sardona’s guy,” I say.
My words bring the room to a pause. What I was suggesting was not something to be taken lightly. If me and Tony hit one of Frankie Sardona’s boys and Frankie Sardona knows it was us who did it, this could start a war within the Family. Hell, the Carcinnis wouldn’t even be happy if me and Tony did this on our own. But if we could do it without getting caught, without even being seen, then nobody could pin anything on us.
Jollie throws up his hands and turns away. “I don’t want to hear this, none of it!”
Tony grabs me by an elbow and pulls me toward the exit. “Jollie, we’ll catch you later. Don’t do nothing. Me and Jackie will get back with you in a day or two.”
The old guy exits out toward the front of his place while Tony pulls me outside, slamming the back door shut between us and Jollie.
Out by his car, he spins on me, his face red. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Talking about stuff like that in front of Jollie?”
It might have looked like I had made a mistake, talking about making a hit in front of somebody not a member of the Family, but it was not a mistake. I had done so on purpose. I still didn’t know who had taken shots at me, and it was bugging me. I wanted a war with the Sardona clan. If this was how it had to start, then so be it. Bringing it up in front of Jollie sort of pressed the issue on Tony, which wasn’t totally fair, I’ll admit, but something had to be done.
“Look,” I say, trying to calm Tony down, “there’s no other way out of this, not without driving who knows the hell where to find another sports car like yours. We do this and make sure it doesn’t look like we did it.”
“Yeah, you numbskull, but now Jollie will know,” Tony says, “and if Sardona gets it in his head to put the hurt on Jollie, the old guy is going to sing. You know that!”
“We take our chances,” I say.
My words are nearly enough for Tony to blow his top. His face goes all red again, redder than before, and he fusses and fumes, kicks at the ground, turns away from me and slaps at the hood of his car. For several long minutes he stands unmoving with his back to me, staring across the parking lot to the traffic lights. Then he slowly turns around and glares at me.
“If we do this,” he says, “nobody can know it was us. You understand?”
I nod.
“Good,” he says, “ ’cause I know where this Varl guy shacks up with a girl from time to time, pretty regular like, and there’s a decent chance we can find him there tonight, get this thing over with.”
“How do you want to do it?” I ask. “We could stop by Mo’s for --”
Tony cuts me off. “No. No guns. If we go in shooting, they’ll know it was somebody from the Family. They’ll know it was a pro hit.”
“Then what do we do?”
Tony reaches in his pocket and pulls out his car’s keys. His thumb jabs the little black fob and there’s a beep, then the trunk of his car pops open. On his face is a grin that would do the Devil himself proud.
“I was saving this,” he says as he rounds to the back of the car. “I was thinking of giving it to you as a welcome-home present. But now ... well, we’ve got a need.”
I watch as he reaches in the trunk and with both hands gingerly lifts out a long, slender item covered with a black, silk cloth.
“Take it,” he says to me.
I shrug and take it. As soon as it lands in my hands, I know what I’m holding.
Tugging away the silk cloth, I toss it into the trunk. Gripped in my right hand is a black, lacquered casing for a samurai sword.
Tony’s grin has grown bigger. “Draw it.”
I pull the sword free of its cover, the long steel blade unfolding into the night air like a silver snake wanting to be free of a cave. I stare at my own reflection in the mirrored blade. My smile is nearly as big as Tony’s.
“Nobody will know it was us,” he says. “Hell, they might even think it was the Triad or somebody out of Hong Kong, or the Yakuza from Tokyo.”
I keep right on smiling. If we do this right, it won’t start a war, but it will almost be like a little piece of revenge for me for the shooting a while back. Who knows? I might even get lucky and find out who it was that tried to waste me. Maybe it was even Mike Varl himself.
But Tony and I aren’t complete morons. We aren’t going into a hot situation without a piece, despite what he was saying a few moments ago. Tony always keeps a little snub-nosed .38 in the glove department of his sports car, and he retrieves the gun before we climb into my cab.
The place where Mike Varl is possibly holed up isn’t too far away, just a half dozen or so blocks from Jollie’s shop, down in a cul de sac of old brownstone buildings, most of them old hotels that had been converted into apartments decades ago. There are cars, mostly beaters, parked all around the circle. There is not a space available for us, so I pull through a driveway into one of the parking spots behind one of the old buildings. Nobody’s going to call a tow truck on a cab.
“You ready?” Tony asks as he checks to make sure his revolver is loaded.
I reach in the back seat and retrieve the sheathed samurai sword. “Oh, yeah.”
Both of us are grinning like idiots.
Out in the night wind, Tony points and tells me where the place is, a couple of buildings over. We have to cross some parking lots to get there, but that doesn’t bother us too much, giving us time to make sure there are no Sardona guys on the watch.
Not finding any tough guys around, we go through a back door and up some steps, Tony having told me the room was on the third floor. Elevators are death traps. Never take an elevator when going to a hit.
All the way up the stairs we never see a person. The only sounds are the occasional subdued noises of televisions behind apartment doors and every now and then a honk from a car in the circle ahead of the building. It’s like we have the whole place to ourselves.
Until we get to the third floor.
A long, well-lit hallway stretches before us, thin carpet, beat-up doors lining both walls. It looks just like the other two floors we’d seen. Except here there is a guy standing at the far end of the hall, at the top of the steps on that side of the building, the front. His back is to us. He wears a black hoodie.
Coincidence that he wears the hoodie? Maybe. But I don’t believe in coincidences. Coincidences get people killed.
But I keep my cool. I almost cry out, and maybe I would have if I’d been the guy with the gun instead of Tony, but as things stand, I stay calm and place a hand on Tony’s chest to bring him up short. My partner stares at me, confused.
What I might have said next is lost as black hoodie suddenly turns around at the other end of the hall.
“Oh shit!” he shouts.
Then he takes off running, almost falling down the steps at the other end.
“Cut him off!” I yell, pushing Tony toward the steps on our side. I take off at a charge, racing across the long hall. It’s a good thing I’m still young and don’t smoke regular.
Making it to the other end, I hear black hoodie making it to the bottom of the stairwell. I had known I wouldn’t be able to catch him, but I wanted one of us on this end of the building in case he should try to make his way back up. But I don’t let his head start get me down. I bound down the steps, jumping the railings as soon as I can.
When I reach the bottom, I almost run into Tony, both of us huffing and puffing as we skid to a stop in front of one another, my sword still sheathed and hanging from a hand, his little gun tucked into one of his pockets.
“Which way?” I ask. Tony was on the bottom floor before me. He had to see something.
But he’s winded and can’t talk yet. Doesn’t stop him, though. He motions toward the front of the place.
We take off running again.
Out the door, all we catch are the glowing red tail lights of some old ’80s muscle car peeling away from the cul de sac. There’s no way we can catch this guy. By the time we could get back to my cab and hit the road, he’s going to be long gone. But we’ll remember the car.
I look to Tony. “What do you think? We still going after Mike?”
Tony shakes his head. “Not now. Guy is probably upstairs on the phone as we speak. Our cover’s blown. He might not know we’re here for him, but he’s going to know something’s going on. No, we need to get the hell out of here before more Sardona boys show.”
So, we get the hell out of there before more Sardona boys show.
We never saw Mike Varl that night, but driving Tony back home, I had to wonder about the black hoodie guy. I still hadn’t got a good look at his face, if it even had been the same guy who had taken shots at me, but I thought I might recognize him again if I saw him. Maybe. He wasn’t a real big guy, looked young, younger than Tony and me even. And he wore dark shades, even at night. Kind of silly, like something a punk or teenager would do. I’d have to remember that. Also, Black hoodie had recognized me. That’s why he had run. I guess he either hadn’t had a piece on him, or he’d been too chickenshit to face me man to man. Didn’t matter. I had his number. I would be hunting him. And his recognition, that’s what made me think it was the same guy.
As for Jollie and his situation, we’d have to deal with that later. For the night, Tony and I needed to lay low. We didn’t know if black hoodie knew our names or not, but it wasn’t impossible word would spread to Sardona that boys of the Carcinni gang had been in the vicinity of Mike Varl.



Chapter 6: Friends to the End

“What the holy fuck were you guys doing?” Roberto Carcinni is not happy with me and Tony. That’s a bad thing. It’s bad enough when your boss is mad at you, but when your boss is the kind of guy who can fire you by making you permanently disappear, that makes the situation all that much worse.
We try to explain the next day, opting for the truth.
Which doesn’t make Roberto any happier.
“So you guys took it upon yourselves to put a hit on this Mike Varl character?” Roberto asks.
Our eyes glued to the carpet at our feet, Tony and me slowly look up and nod.
The boss slams a fist against his desk. “You fucking idiots! You two know better! Nobody gets hit unless an order comes down ... and no order came down!”
Yeah, see, this is just the kind of thing that makes guys permanently disappear.
Roberto slaps his desk again, not as hard this time, then turns away from us to stare out at the city beyond his window. “I swear to God, if we didn’t have these troubles going on with Sardona, I’d have the two of you sunk to the bottom of the ocean or something.”
Do I hear a hint of a chance at survival here?
Roberto turns and glances at us. “But as things stand, I need every soldier I can get.”
I breath easier, and I sense Tony does the same at my side. We’re going to make it out of this one. But that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. No, we’ll have to do something to make things right.
“Okay,” Roberto says. “You guys owe me now, so I’ve got something I need you to do.”
“Anything, boss,” Tony says.
“Yeah, anything,” Roberto says. “Damn straight, anything.”
He’s right. At this point, if he wants us to gang fuck a bunch of polar bears, we’re going to do it. It’s either that, or we end up feeding the fishies under some pier somewhere.
“Okay,” Roberto says again, “since you dunderheads have tipped off the Sardona gang, we don’t have to tip-toe around quite so much. It ain’t a full-scale war, not yet, but hostilities have arisen. At least you two didn’t whack anybody, ’cause then we would have a war on our hands.”
“What do you want us to do, boss?” Tony asks.
Roberto yanks open a drawer of his desk and pulls out a small revolver, then tosses it to me. “You guys can make this up to me by pulling a little job. No fuck ups, understand?”
“Sure, boss,” I say with a nod.
Tony nods, too.
“Alright.” Roberto sits behind his desk again, his blood pressure dropping, his demeanor growing calm like his usual self. “There’s a hood, a nobody, a punk, who has opened up a crack den down by the docks. The place is little more than a flop house for idiots who want to smoke up, but we can’t have this in our territory, least of all because we don’t control it. Far as I can tell, this guy is a solo operator, no ties with Sardona.”
“So he’s an open target?” Tony asks.
“That’s right,” Roberto says with a grin. “Shut this guy down. I don’t care how you do it. Take him out, if you have to. Just close him down. Do whatever you go to do.”
This had Tony and me both grinning. We were being given free range on this job. It made things easier for us, and fun. We needn’t worry about pulling any punches.
“Now get.” Roberto waves us away, obviously finished with us. “I’ll text you guys the punk’s name and location.”
We get, both Tony and me thankful we hadn’t caught more shit than we had. Really, we could have wound up with holes in the back of our heads, but Roberto had saved our asses. It might not look that way, but it’s the truth. Me and Tony, yeah, we’d screwed up. And we knew it. Usually, screws up were done away with. Roberto, he must have talked down somebody higher up to save us from the fire. Now, we owed Roberto, big time. We would not screw up this next job.
Down on the street, we took a little, beat-up sedan saved just for jobs like ours. Tony’s sports car would stand out too much, especially down by the docks, and while a taxi cab could blend in just about anywhere in the city, we were thinking it might be getting known that I drove a cab, especially after our blunder with black hoodie and Varl.
I curse under my breath as I climb behind the wheel of the sedan. I still wish we had gotten that black hoodie bastard.
We aren’t cruising very long when Tony’s cell phone beeps a few times. He checks the screen, then smiles.
“We got the name and address,” he says, then gives both to me.
I recognize the address, being a common spot down by the river, and the name also rings a bell. “Smokey Tobins?” I say. “I remember that guy from way back. Used to be a gangbanger. Thought he’d retired from all that shit.”
“Guess not,” Tony says as we move along the streets, heading for the river. “Or maybe he’s on his own nowadays.” He shrugs. “Or maybe the guy just needs money. Things are tough all over.”
I shrug back. I remember Smokey being a bit of a hard ass back in the day, but he never crossed the Family in any way that I ever knew of. Too bad he’d crossed a line now. Too bad for him.
When we get down to the docks district, it’s late in the afternoon, end-of-the-day time for most of the blue-collar guys working down there. It looks kind of funny, us being the only car heading into the area while everybody else is heading home for the day. But that means we’ll have the place to ourselves, other than maybe a security guard or two or some guy working overtime, which don’t happen much these days because companies aren’t willing to pay for overtime.
Soon enough we’re cruising between long, low buildings made of aluminum sheeting, most of these warehouses for stuff unloaded from the docks on our right. Because we’re mostly on our own, it doesn’t take long to find the crack house. I spot it before we even get to it.
There’s a half dozen guys strung out across the front of the place, most of them looking like they’ve seen better days. Hell, they all look like zombies, bad skin, dirty clothes, glazed looks in their eyes.
“That’s the place.” Tony points as I pull the car up front, then turn us around so we’re facing the way out, just in case there’s serious trouble.
Climbing out of our beater, we ponder the two doors into the place, a glass one just around the corner from where we’re parked and a large, metal roll-up door right in front of us. The glass door we’d seen when I’d pulled in. The big roll-up door has a padlock on it.
“Around the side,” Tony says, heading for the glass door while pulling his .38 from a back pocket.
I bring out my own revolver and follow. I keep telling myself, No screw ups this time. No screw ups this time.
As we round the corner for the glass door, Tony shoves one of the junkies out of the way. It’s almost enough to distract me. I almost don’t see the big goon on the other side of the glass door, his hands frantically working at locking the door from the inside.
I don’t give him the chance.
I raise my gun and fire twice, sending the junkies and zombies scattering for safety as my thunder cracks through the glass and sends the big guy there reeling backward into shadows.
Tony takes it all in like a champ. My shooting doesn’t even phase him. He jumps forward, grabs the door with the keys still hanging from the lock on the other side, and yanks it open. We rush inside.
What we find is an office room of sorts, desk with chair behind it on the left, florescents overhead shedding light on the situation. Now that we’re in, I can see the big guy I shot squirming around on the ground, trying to crawl behind the desk. He’s a big boy, his black turtleneck almost as dark as his skin.
We hear shuffling from a closed door on the other side of the room, but for the moment we ignore it. I move around to the wounded guy and use a tennis shoe to roll him over on his back. He’s not too bad off, actually, my bullets having caught him in the left shoulder. He groans as he lands on his back, his eyes closed.
But then his eyes pop open as he hears the click of my gun’s hammer. He stares up into the barrel only inches from his face.
“Where’s Smokey?” I ask.
He says nothing for a moment, then his eyes flicker to the closed door.
“Thanks,” I say. I almost move away from the guy, but then I point my gun in his face again and he cringes.
I almost pull the trigger, but decide against it. I’ve only got four shots left and didn’t bring extra ammo. This is supposed to be a small job. So, instead of finishing the guy, I tell him, “Don’t be here when we get back.”
He nods.
I give him a slight kick, not enough to really hurt, just to show him we mean business.
Then I turn around and find Tony already on the other side of that closed door. His .38 is raised, ready for action. We trade glances, then I nod.
He reaches down from the side and grabs the door knob, twists.
A blast like something straight out of hell batters through the door. A shotgun blast. A few pellets scrape along Tony’s right arm, causing him to flinch back and scream like a mother fucker, but he seems relatively whole. He’s lucky that doors is old and thick, made of real wood.
Somebody is cursing on the other side of that door, but I can’t hear them despite the big hole there now, my ears still ringing. I do something stupid and stick my revolver through the big hole in the door and start pulling the trigger.
I get off two shots before I hear a scream on the other side. I got lucky. Very lucky. The punk could have cut me in half with that shotgun. But I don’t ponder my luck for long. Yanking open the door, I jump through and roll to one side, just in case there’s somebody else with a piece.
There’s not, so my luck is still holding.
I’m kneeling, my gun extended, an open warehouse in front of me, metal tables stretching into the distance. Right in front of me is a dead guy, not Smokey, a bullet in the middle of his bald head. Yeah, I got real lucky.
Down to only two bullets, I slip my revolver into a pocket and grab the dead guy’s pump shotgun, Tony stepping into the doorway right behind me.
“You okay?” I ask, looking up and back at my partner.
He’s still wincing, but he’s standing strong, his gun arm ready to play. He nods.
I stand with the shotgun and we both survey the room. There’s nobody else here.
But there is an open door showing outside light at the far end of the building.
“Damn,” Tony says.
“Get to the car and circle around,” I tell him. “I’m going after him.”
Tony voices some kind of response, something about him barely being able to drive with only one good arm, but I don’t pay attention to it. I’m off and running. We can’t screw this up. Smokey has got to go down today.
It takes longer than I’d like to get to the other side of the long building, but when I reach the door I scramble right on through it, shotgun leading the way. I find myself in a nearly empty parking lot behind the warehouse, only a couple of old, beat-up pick-up trucks parked near me.
A squeal of tires brings my head around.
At the far end of the lot is a little blue car careening around a corner, heading toward the front of the building. I say a brief prayer, hoping Tony is there, because we don’t need a repeat of what happened with black hoodie.
But before I can act, there’s our car, Tony behind the wheel. He’s driving like a crazy man, and slams our sedan right into the front of that little blue car. There’s a crunching sound and both vehicles come to a halt, gray smoke springing up from beneath the crumpled hood of the blue car.
I spare a glance at those two trucks near me, wishing I had the keys or the time to hot wire them, but then I take off at another run, heading toward Tony and the crashed cars. Seems like all I do is run anymore.
Running and running, I see no movement from either our sedan or the blue car. Until I’m about halfway there and my lungs are nearly out of air.
The driver’s door of the blue car springs open and a foot comes out. Then a guy stands behind the door, shaking his head as if fighting off being dazed.
It’s Smokey Tobins. Even at a distance, even with more than five years since I’ve seen this guy, I recognize him.
He’s not looking in my direction. Might not even know I’m there.
Which is fine with me.
I slow to a jog and raise the shotgun to a shoulder.
Smokey is swaying on his feet, but he’s slowly moving away from his car, a semi-auto pistol hanging from one hand.
In a movie or something, I might scream right about now, before I blow the guy away, but this ain’t a movie or something. I ain’t giving this guy any kind of heads up.
I pull the trigger.
The blast goes wide mostly, but manages to zing Smokey in the elbow of his gun hand. I was too far away for a shotgun. But at least I’ve winged him.
He curses and turns toward me, slipping his auto from his bad arm to his other hand. He raises the gun. I jack another shell into my shotgun.
Neither of us gets the chance to fire.
Because suddenly there’s a barrage of bullets coming from the other side of me and Tony’s sedan. Good old Tony. Shot and been in a car crash, and he’s still going strong.
Smokey is caught totally off guard, Tony’s bullets smacking into his side and back. Blood splatters and our target goes down. Just for good measure, as I run up to the guy, I stomp on his neck.
Standing there breathing heavily, I stare down to make sure Smokey is no more. He’s dead. Good. Then I raise my eyes and look to Tony. He’s still got his .38 extended, but it’s aimed toward the ground now. He’s leaning against the frame of our car behind the open door. He doesn’t look good.
“Okay, man, look,” I say as I work my way between the two crashed cars, “we’ll get you to a Family doc, and you’ll be in good shape in no time.”
Tony looks up at me and grins. His shot arm is now caked in blood. He must have taken a worse hit than I thought. And there’s a big bump on his forehead, which must’ve happened in the crash. God only knows what else is wrong with him.
I’m getting ready to rush forward and help him back into our car when another shot rings out.
I drop to the concrete without thinking.
Then Tony falls down next to me. There’s a hole the size of a silver dollar in the back of his head, or what’s left of his head, most of the front having been blown away.
I don’t have time to curse or scream or anything because another half dozen shots come my way. Fortunately there’s enough of the cars between me and the shooter. Bullets graze across the hoods and bounce off the concrete near me, but none hit home.
Then I hear running. Someone running away.
Raising the shotgun with me, I come up behind our car. At the other end near the front of the warehouse building is that glass door, now hanging open. Sitting on the ground next to the door with his back against the outside wall is the guy in the black sweater who I had shot twice. He doesn’t appear to be moving.
In the distance, I hear a car engine kick over, then wheels peeling out and away.
Whoever whacked Tony and tried to whack me, he was getting away.
For a moment I lose it. I take off running toward the front of the building, the glass door, and the guy sitting there. I’m ready to kill, to kill anybody. I just don’t give a shit. Tony was an old, old friend. We went way back. He was there for me, the only person who was there for me, when I got out of the joint. He got me set back up with the Carcinnis, got me a place to stay, and a job. You don’t find friends like that often. Somebody had to pay.
As I near the guy sitting by the door, my rage drifts away. The guy has been shot a couple of more times. His chest is a mess of gore soaking through his dark sweater.
But he is still alive.
Don’t ask me how, but the guy is breathing, just barely. Red bubbles are forming on his lips.
I take to a knee next to him.
“Who did it?” I ask.
His eyes roll around in his head, trying to focus.
“Tell me who did it and I’ll get you to a hospital,” I say, frantic, meaning my words. If this guy can identify who killed Tony, then I’ll owe him.
His lips move, but nothing comes out. He’s struggling to speak, his life fleeing his body. Finally, he mutters something, but I don’t catch it.
“What?” I ask, putting my ear up to his lips. “What did you say?”
He mumbles a little, then, finally, “... a black hoodie.”
They are the last words he ever says. His head rolls over to one side and his eyes roll back in his head.
I stand there and look down on the dead guy, the joints of my fingers going white as they tighten on the shotgun I’m holding.


COMING SOON ... GUNS ’N MONEY 2



More fiction from Rob Volver

20 Tales of Horror and Fantasy