by Mike Ryan
“It’s my fight if I choose to make it so. And I do. Good is good, bad is bad, and it’s time one got rid of the other.”
Jacobs tapped him on the front of his shoulder. “Thank you.”
“What do you say we get out of here before someone else shows up?”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
On the way back to the house, Jacobs called Franks and gave him the brief rundown on what had happened. Part of it was because he was too mad at himself to want to say it all in person. He hoped he wouldn’t have to talk about it again. Once they got back to the house, as soon as Jacobs walked through the door, Tiffany ran over to him and jumped into his arms, hugging him tightly.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You’re here. That’s all that matters.”
They started kissing. Thrower smiled at them, then glanced at Franks, who gave him a weird look.
“Don’t look at me like that, man. Ain’t no smooches coming your way from this guy. You gotta find yourself another dance partner.”
Thrower laughed. “I’ll, uh, I’ll get by.”
“Uh, if you two lovie-dovies are done now, can we discuss some things?”
Jacobs and Tiffany pulled their lips away from each other. Jacobs wasn’t sure what there was to talk about, though. “What is it that we’re discussing?”
“Oh, a whole host of things, man. For one, we gotta figure out a game plan here. No more flying by the seat of our pants, no more reacting to them. Let’s take the fight to them. Make them react to us.”
“I agree,” Thrower said. “Put them on the defensive.”
“How?” Jacobs asked.
“Well, let’s put our heads together and think it through. Between all of us, we can figure out a strategy. I mean, we got three different organizations we’re fighting now.”
“It’s more like two. Two of them seem to have merged.”
“Well, whatever. Still, let’s think it through. Get it right.”
Everyone sat down, and they started discussing what they thought was the right plan going forward.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Franks said. “Nate needs to be out there with you. Having him stay back to protect Tiff or her parents is cutting ourselves in half. And we ain’t got the manpower.”
Even though Jacobs surely could have used Thrower’s help in the field, he wasn’t ready to take him away from protecting Tiffany or her parents. “I don’t know. We already know that Ames is willing to target both of them. And we know that Mallette is more than willing.”
“I can stay with Tiff. And maybe we can send her parents away for a small vacation or something.” Franks then looked at Tiffany. “Think we can send them packing somewhere for a week or two?”
“I don’t know,” Tiffany replied. “They don’t really have a lot of money for that. I mean, they’re OK, but…”
“Let me worry about that. I’ll take care of it.”
“How?” Jacobs asked.
“Tell them you entered them to win a vacation to Hawaii or something. Yeah, that’s it. And obviously they won.”
“Hawaii?” Tiffany said. “How are we gonna send them there?”
“Like I said, let me worry about that. I’ll take care of the details. Would they go?”
“Uh, yeah, sure. I mean, they’ve always talked about going there one day.”
Franks smiled. “Looks like one day has arrived.”
“OK, now Nate doesn’t have to protect them,” Jacobs said. “What about Tiff?”
“They know where I work,” Tiffany said.
Franks scratched his face. “Hmm. That could be a problem.”
“Could be a big problem,” Jacobs said. “You’ve got your talents, Eddie, but eluding people ain’t one of them. If they’re waiting there at that school one day…”
Franks sat up straight and put his arms out, as if he’d thought of the solution. “Well, that’s it, then.”
“What is?”
“She takes the week off. Then we don’t have to worry about it. And they don’t know she’s here, so it’s all good.”
“You want me to take a week off from school?” Tiffany asked.
“It’s for your own good, dear.”
Tiffany looked at Jacobs for his thoughts.
Jacobs shrugged. “It’s up to you. I’m not gonna tell you what you should do. You know the risks.”
“I could always take her to and from,” Thrower said. “Then hook back up with you afterwards.”
Jacobs nodded. “That’s an idea.”
“What if I go and they try something while I’m there?” Tiffany asked.
“They won’t. None of them are dumb enough to do something at a school. That’s way more scrutiny and attention than any of them want. That’s an instant lifetime sentence. They would wait for you to leave.”
“Can you take a week off?” Franks asked.
“Uh, yeah, I guess I could,” Tiffany answered. “I’m just not sure I’d want to. I’d miss my kids.”
“The decision’s yours,” Jacobs said. “No pressure from us. Do what you want. We’ll figure out how to work around it.”
Tiffany thought about it for a few seconds. She then came to a decision. She took a deep breath before saying what it was. “I’ll take a week off.”
“Are you sure?”
Tiffany nodded. “Yeah. It’s the best thing for us.”
“Sure you can manage it?”
“Yeah. I have time that I can use. But only one week.”
“Doesn’t give us a lot of time,” Franks said.
“We’ll make it work,” Jacobs replied.
Tiffany leaned over and gave Jacobs a kiss. “When should I talk to my parents?”
“Today,” Franks said. “I’ll get it set up so they leave tomorrow.”
“OK. Guess I should call them now, then. Let them know so they can pack.”
“All expenses paid.”
Tiffany got up and left the room so she could call her parents. The other three kept discussing their options.
“One week isn’t a lot of time,” Thrower said.
“We gotta do what we can,” Jacobs said. “Let’s try to take the fight to them, while not taking unnecessary chances at the same time.”
Franks rubbed his chin. “One week. That means we gotta hit the streets hot and heavy. I’ll put some contacts to work on it.”
Jacobs nodded. “They got thrown for a loop today. If we can find them fast, hit them hard, we can do some damage before they’re able to regroup and come up with another plan. This could be a good opportunity.”
“Assuming we can find them,” Thrower said.
“Yeah. Assuming we can find them.”
Mallette, Butch, and their men had gotten back to the textiles building, going up to the second floor. They were trying to make sense of what just happened. They didn’t do much talking at first. Or any.
As soon as Mallette walked in, he went over to a chair, picked it up, and flung it across the room. He then picked up another chair and smashed it over his desk, the chair breaking into pieces. Mallette picked up one of the wooden legs, which was now separated from the rest of the chair, and repeatedly beat it against the desk, trying to get his frustration out.
“We had him! We had him!” He continued smashing the chair leg against the desk. “I had him right in my grasp!” Everyone else backed up, making sure they gave him plenty of space, not wanting to incur his wrath. “I was two seconds away from killing him!” Mallette stopped beating on the desk and tossed the chair leg onto the floor and turned to his men. “What happened?”
“Well, um…” Selby didn’t know what else to say to calm him down.
“Jacobs had help, boss,” Reed said.
“I know that!” Mallette started to rage again. He turned back to his desk and put his fingers underneath it, flipping it over. He then rushed over to Reed, getting in his face. “I was seconds away. Seconds away. And what happened?!”
Reed cleared his throat, trying to remain calm and not give his boss any more ammunition. “Um, I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what happened! He got away! That damn piece of…” Mallette didn’t finish uttering his curse-filled rage, and picked up another chair. He went over to the window with it and smashed it through the glass. He looked down below at the pieces of glass and the chair now resting on the concrete. Mallette turned around, found the broken chair, and tossed it across the room again. “We didn’t even kill the dog!”
“Dog’s like a cat,” Selby said. “Got nine lives or something.”
Mallette went over to him. “Then you need to kill all nine of them!”
“Jacobs had help. Wasn’t our fault.”
Mallette snarled at him. He was silent for a second, and it looked like he was finally starting to calm down. “Yes. He had help.” He backed away, then started pacing around the room. “What kind of help? Who? How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, we need to find out. It’s obvious Jacobs wasn’t being honest with us when he said there was no one else.”
“What should we do?”
“Get our boys on the street. Find anyone who might be connected to Jacobs. I want it all. Rumors, innuendo, facts, anything. I don’t care what it is, just get it.”
“Right away,” Selby said.
“I have a feeling it’s just one,” Butch said. “Probably the same guy that was rumored to be helping him against Ames.”
Mallette looked at him. “Yes, I think you’re probably right. What’s known about this man?”
Butch shrugged. “Nothing. Just some crazy-skilled martial arts guy. Heard he’s a big guy, can fight.”
“That part is obvious. We need a name, though. We can’t operate without it. Otherwise, we’ll be working in the dark, always knowing this guy is out there, waiting to pounce on us when we least expect it.” Mallette went over to the window and looked out the new opening in it. “Reed.”
“Yeah, boss?”
Mallette thought back to his conversation with Jacobs. “I told Jacobs what I would do if he wasn’t honest with me.”
“Yeah?”
“His girlfriend. Tiffany is her name, I believe.”
“Yeah?”
“Kill her.”
Butch gave him a look, not really on board with the idea of killing someone who wasn’t involved in the fight. But he also wasn’t going to get in the way and try to stop it.
“When?” Reed asked. “How?”
“How is your business. I’ll leave it up to you. As for when… as soon as possible. Just kill her.”
11
Tiffany and Thrower walked into the house, finding Jacobs and Franks at the kitchen table, going over plans.
“No problems, I assume?” Jacobs said.
Thrower shook his head. “No. Everything went off without a hitch. Her parents got on the plane, no sign of anybody.”
“Good.”
Tiffany smiled. “Let me tell you, they were so excited to get on that plane. Two weeks in Hawaii is… I don’t know. They’re beyond thrilled.”
“I’m just glad we won’t have to worry about their safety now. For a couple weeks, anyway.”
“How you guys making out?” Thrower asked.
There was a map of the city on the table, and a few pieces of paper in front of both Jacobs and Franks. They were marking off and writing down every known location that Mallette was known to own. At least before he went to prison. There had been some activity on some of Mallette’s properties since he’d gone to jail, but they weren’t sure if some of them were just paper transactions, and they still technically belonged to Mallette, just under different names.
Franks was also putting his contacts to use. And he was hitting them up hard. They were scouring the city, trying to find anyone who was doing business with Mallette, Butch, or Ames. None of whom seemed to be so easy to find these days.
There was a knock on the door. Thrower immediately got his gun out and ran over to the living room window.
“Relax, man, it should be Hack,” Franks said.
“Who?”
“Oh, that’s right, you haven’t met the dude yet, have you?”
Jacobs walked past Thrower and tapped him on the back of the shoulder. “He’s good with computers.”
“And the name?” Thrower asked. “I assume that means…?”
“You guessed it.”
Thrower nodded and shrugged. He still kept his gun out, just in case. Tiffany went over and stood behind him. She’d never met Hack, either. She heard Jacobs and Franks talk about him a few times, but that was all she knew of him. Jacobs looked out the peephole once he reached the door. Upon seeing that it was Hack, he opened it.
Hack came in and greeted Jacobs. He took a step past him, then stopped suddenly when he saw Thrower still with his gun out.
“Nate, we’re good,” Jacobs said.
Thrower looked down at his gun, not even realizing it was still out. “Oh. Sorry.” He put it away, making Hack breathe a bit easier. Jacobs led Hack into the kitchen, introducing him to Thrower and Tiffany on the way.
“You’re the guy who helped them before, huh?”
Thrower grinned. “That’s me.”
Hack then looked at Tiffany. “And you’re the woman who stole Brett’s heart, huh?”
Tiffany briefly glanced at Jacobs. “Well, hopefully that’s me.”
“And people say I talk a lot,” Franks said, standing by the table. “You wanna stop jacking your jaw and get in here and help us?”
Hack smiled. “Eddie, I just figured I’d get the introductions out of the way because I assumed I wouldn’t get a chance to get a word in later.”
Everyone had a good laugh. Except for Franks. “Oh, hardy har, very funny. Isn’t that just hilarious? Now if you don’t mind?”
Hack went over to the table and set up his computer. Once he was finished, he looked over at everyone. “What do you have for me?”
“What do you mean?” Franks asked. “I told you on the phone what we wanted. Find one of them slobs. Don’t matter who right now. Mallette, Butch, Ames… we ain’t picky. Just find one.”
Hack gave him a curious look. “Eddie, you do remember how this works, right? I mean, I need something to start with. I can’t just pull information out of the air. I need a starting point.”
Jacobs walked over to the table and put his phone down. “Here’s a starting point. Butch called me two days ago to have a meeting yesterday. There’s his number.”
Hack looked at the number and nodded. He then glanced at Franks. “At least someone here remembers how this works.”
Franks gave him a face back. “You know, if you weren’t so good at computers…”
“Then what?”
“Uh, I dunno. Haven’t figured that part out yet. Proceed, anyway.”
Hack smiled, then got started by typing in the phone number.
Jacobs then pushed a piece of paper in Hack’s direction. “This is a list of names that we know of that work for Butch. And those that we know of for Ames. Not sure about anyone with Mallette yet.”
Hack looked at the paper and nodded. “Between this and the number, it should be enough for me to find something.”
Thrower and Tiffany looked on intently since this was the first time they were watching Hack work.
“How long’s this usually take?” Thrower asked.
Jacobs shrugged. “Depends. Could take minutes. Could take hours. Just depends.”
Thrower whispered. “So how good is this guy?”
“I’m the best,” Hack replied, looking over at him and smiling. He then went back to his work.
Jacobs nodded and raised an eyebrow. “He is, really. He’s done this for us a lot before.”
“I mean, yeah, he’s OK,” Franks said.
“Eddie?” Hack said.
Franks put his hands up and rolled his eyes. “I mean, yeah, he’s the greatest.” He then went over t
o Hack’s chair and started looking over his shoulder.
Hack stopped typing and slowly turned his head around. “Something I can do for you?”
“Just looking.”
“You know I don’t like that, Eddie.”
“Why not? If you’re the best, it shouldn’t matter.”
Jacobs came over to him and gently pushed Franks away. They all went into the living room to give Hack some room.
“Well, I just wanted to see what was going on,” Franks said.
“You don’t need to see,” Jacobs replied. “When he has something worth sharing, we’ll know.”
“Some lunch would be nice!” Hack shouted.
Franks rolled his eyes and threw his arms up. “Really? Is that all?”
“Nope, that’ll do it. Cheeseburger, fries, and a soda. Make it extra large.”
“Seriously, man? Extra large?”
“It’s a big job.”
Franks looked at Jacobs, who was staring back at him. “What?”
“Well?” Jacobs said.
“Well, what?”
“Well, go get it.”
“Why me?”
“You’re the designated lunch-getter.”
Franks raised his eyebrows. “Since when?”
“Tiff can’t go out there alone, and I don’t want Nate going since he doesn’t know the area.”
“Ever hear of GPS and maps?”
“Really, Eddie?”
“What? Why can’t they go together?”
“You really want Tiff out there being a target, just to get some food?”
Franks glanced at Tiffany’s sweet face. “No, I guess not.”
“Extra large!” Hack shouted.
“Where do you put it, man? You’re thin as a stick.”
“I burn it off!”
Franks spoke softly. “Probably all the talking you do.”
After Franks left, Jacobs looked at the others and gave a slight shake of his head. Tiffany laughed.
“Does this always go on with these two?” she wondered aloud.
“Oh yeah,” Jacobs replied. “Back and forth all the time. Just be thankful they didn’t get into one of their usual food discussions.”
Thrower looked confused. “Food discussions? What’s that like?”