I swore and pulled the gun away.
It was Spider. He was unmoved by the fact that I had almost shot him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked him with a hiss to my voice.
He looked around the apartment. “Question is … what the hell are you doing here? What have you and Tiny been up to?”
I put my gun away and went to find my spot on the floor. He sank against the opposite wall.
“This doesn’t concern you,” I said to him.
“There seems to be a lot of stuff that doesn’t concern me these days.”
We both watched the wall across from us for a while.
“How did you find me?” I wondered finally.
“You and Tiny have been going off on your own lately. I figured I’d follow you to see what you were up to.” He clasped his hands behind his head and stretched out. “So, who are we waiting for?”
“One of Shield’s ballbusters.” I figured he’d have found this out eventually.
“Business or pleasure?”
“It’s personal.”
“Ah,” he said, barking a dark laugh, “I should have known all this had to do with Emmy. Only she would melt your brain into thinking that this was a good idea.”
“What would you have me do? Ignore the fact that the people who murdered Rocco and did that to Emmy get to walk this earth?”
“No. But you and I both know there are ways to get your revenge without you risking yourself. We have people who can take care of that for you.”
“Like I said, it’s personal.”
“What if the captains find out that you’ve been personally doling out judgment? That you’re on some sort of killing rampage? Do you think that they’d feel confident in you handling all the business affairs?”
“They won’t find out about this. I’ve been very careful.”
“You could have asked me for my help, you know.”
“Would you have agreed to help me?”
“I would have definitely tried to talk you out of it. But I wouldn’t have let you take all the risk on your own.” There was pain in his voice.
“I didn’t want you involved.”
“In case something goes wrong?”
“Nothing will go wrong. You and Carly are not to get caught up in all this.”
Spider’s expression flickered. “We’ve always worked as a team, Cam. If I don’t know what you’re up to, how can I have your back?”
I didn’t have an answer for him. He was right. Spider and I had had each other’s back from the first day we met. The more I tried to hide things from him and Carly, the faster the darkness was spreading through. I could feel it.
“Is that why you set up the dummy shipment with Shield without telling me? Because of Emmy?” he wondered. “You know the captains will find out about the shipment and worry.”
I should have known that Spider would eventually put two and two together when he saw that newspaper article about Shield’s drug seizure. “The captains’ shipment will be coming in safe and sound. All they’ll see is the money rolling in and the cops too busy to notice the new shipment hitting the streets.”
“And you don’t think they’ll want to know who was trying to bring in dope on their turf?”
“I’ll confess it was me. That we were getting too much heat and needed to distract the feds. Besides, they won’t appreciate seeing Shield with all that free dope.”
“And they won’t wonder who actually paid for the shipment?”
I also should have known that it wouldn’t take Carly long to rat me out to Spider. I realized then how clouded my judgment was becoming. Dark clouds.
“We’ll call it an early Christmas present. A freebie for all the other fuckups this year.” My voice had faded. Somebody was climbing up the stairs outside the door. Spider and I eyed each other. We pulled our guns out. He got up to wait behind the door, and I just stood as the welcoming committee. When the door opened, Mike Westfall had a gun to his shaved head and was shoved into the living room by Spider.
“Officer Westfall,” I exclaimed, clasping my hands together with elation. I was going to enjoy this.
“Sit,” Spider ordered him.
Westfall took a seat on his dirty old mattress and waited, his expression oddly solemn.
“You know why I’m here?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he answered and looked up at me. “I knew I would eventually have to pay for what happened to that girl.”
I was taken aback by his response. I had expected him to deny everything and try to talk his way out, but Mike actually looked like he felt guilty. This made me curious.
I glanced at the bare room. “Quite the shithole you have here.”
“I don’t need much.”
“You’re a junkie?” I hadn’t found any dope or drug paraphernalia, but that was the only explanation as to the decrepit state of his apartment.
“Never touched the stuff,” the officer replied candidly in passing.
Then he glanced up; he looked at my gun, and then he looked at me. “Have you ever had to choose between your family and doing the right thing?”
He waited, like he was actually looking for an answer.
Spider cleared his throat and signaled me with his gun.
Mike was the guard who had been stationed at Emmy’s door after Shield had kidnapped her. Mike sat and did nothing while Emmy got beaten up. He could have protected her. He could have helped her escape before she was forced to go through all that. There was no doubt that I was going to kill him, but not just yet. I was suddenly interested in what he had to say.
Officer Westfall let his hands fall between his knees and dropped his head. “There was a moment. When the girl was behind the door and pleaded with me to let her out. There was a moment when I thought I was hearing my own daught—” He stopped and took a breath. “When I thought I was going to unlock the door and let her escape before that pig came back for her.”
“And yet, you did nothing,” I hissed.
He looked up at me. “You loved her, didn’t you?”
I glared at him and pulled out my gun.
“You wouldn’t have come for me yourself if you didn’t love her,” he surmised in a whisper as he dropped his face again and closed his eyes. He reached into his shirt.
“Hey! Hands where I can see them,” Spider ordered, but I shook my head.
Mike’s gun was still in its holster on his hip. Whatever he was reaching for, it wasn’t a gun.
He pulled out a piece of paper—a picture that he kissed. Then he made the sign of the cross.
“We get to decide when you’re ready, pal,” Spider snapped and looked at me with a question. “What are you waiting for?” he mouthed.
Mike was holding the picture in his palm, eerily calm.
“Who’s in the picture, Mike?”
He looked up but did not respond.
“Give it to me,” I demanded.
But he held my eyes.
Spider brought his gun to Mike’s temple.
Mike got the message and finally conceded, handing me the picture.
It was a picture of a woman and a child sitting on a bed, smiling, arms interlocked. They both had shaved heads. They were in a hospital somewhere. The little girl was in a pink bathrobe. Her skin was gray, and she had tubes sticking out everywhere.
“Who is this?”
“That’s my wife and my daughter,” he answered, his eyes fixed on the picture as if he were right there with them, interlocked on the bed. “My daughter got really sick when she was five years old. She’s been sick ever since. Leukemia.”
I knew this could have been a ruse, a way to get sympathy so that I wouldn’t kill him. But when he looked up at me as I held the picture in my hands, I could see it in his eyes—the hate. Just the thought of having some scum like me so close to his wife and child was enough to make him want to gut me and use my intestines as a speed bump. Only a man who was truly in love would have that kind of re
action. I would know.
I gave him back the picture, and he started to breathe again, putting the picture back inside his shirt so that I couldn’t get to it again.
“The shaved heads?”
He brushed his hand to his naked skull, and a sad smile came to his lips. “She was pretty upset when she started losing her hair. She used to have long brown hair. It was so thick and curly you couldn’t put a brush through it. We let her shave all our heads. It helped a little bit.”
I leaned against the wall and crossed my hands over my chest, tucking my gun under. “Why the hell would you risk all that just to work for Shield?”
“Do you think I want to work for that asshole?” he growled. “I have no choice. My salary isn’t enough to cover our medical bills. By working for Shield, I can afford to pay for her medical care, and my wife can stay at our daughter’s bedside. Every penny I have goes to keep my girl alive.”
I kept my composure, but something was rising within me. Something that I had been trying my whole life to quash, kill off.
“I had someone do research on you. None of this ever came up.”
“My wife and I got married in Jamaica but never filed the paperwork here. My wife is extremely stubborn and didn’t want to change her name when we got married.”
“And no one has ever wondered, asked you about them?”
“No one here knows they even exist. Since I started working for Shield, I’ve been staying away from them.” Then he looked me in the eye. “Wouldn’t you?”
I stood by with my gun, knowing what needed to be done.
Mike continued, “I’m sorry for what happened to your girl. But if I would have let her go, then Shield would have killed me or looked into my past and then killed me. I chose my family.”
We were done pretending that Emmy was just another girl. I believed that everything Mike had said was the truth. But now he knew how deep my love for Emmy ran, and he now knew that I was going against the will of the Coalition, that I was out for the blood of every man who had had any contact with Emmy. Mike was armed with information that would get me and everyone I ever cared for killed.
But Mike had his own reasons for being there, for having made really bad decisions. A deathly ill daughter. Mounting hospital bills. A family that was everything to him.
All of a sudden, Mike and I had a lot in common. And killing him would be the demise of his family.
“I’m letting you go,” I told him. Spider and Mike just stared at me as though I were speaking Klingon. “Make the arrangements you need to safely get yourself out of Shield’s grasp. Go back to your family. And if you tell anyone about anything, know that I will come after you and your wife and your kid. You’ll wish I would have killed you today.”
Mike’s eyes were round, mirrored only by Spider’s eyes.
****
“What the hell was that?” Spider grunted as we walked down the block.
“It was my decision. I stand by it.”
“It was that picture, wasn’t it? Sick little girl. Devoted parents who shaved their heads to make their daughter feel better about losing her own hair. You believed that classic sob story about a kid dying of cancer. It could have all been a bunch of bullshit. He could have printed that picture off the Internet and kept it on him for the sympathy vote.”
I remembered Mike’s reaction as I held the picture. “He was telling the truth.” Of this, I had no doubt.
“What if he wasn’t?”
“He was. And if he wasn’t, then he’ll suffer an even worse death.”
I found Tiny waiting for me at the meeting point.
“This is exactly why you should have never been doing all this yourself. Now you’ve given him enough time to warn Shield before disappearing.”
“No one can ever disappear forever,” I reminded him. “And he won’t do anything to jeopardize his kid’s life.”
“That is, if he even has a kid,” Spider mumbled as I got into the car.
“If he dies, so does the money that pays for the kid’s medical bills.”
Spider held on to the door so that I couldn’t close it. “So we kill him and send his family more money than they know what to do with. They can pay bills or whatever the hell they want. Who the fuck cares what happens to them? Since when do you care? We don’t leave liabilities, Cameron.”
“My decision is final. Mike is to remain unharmed unless I order otherwise.”
“Emmy’s messed with your head too much. You’re not thinking straight anymore. She’s not even around, and she still manages to fuck you up.”
“Let’s go,” I ordered Tiny.
As soon as Tiny pressed on the gas, Spider let go of the door and I shut it, leaving Spider to talk to himself on the sidewalk. We were immediately going to the closest airfield—initially part of my escape plan in case things with Mike went wrong.
Spider was initially supposed to meet me there, so I suppose I could have just offered him a ride to the airfield. But he had gotten himself to Mike’s place, and he could get himself back. Besides, he needed time to cool off.
When we drove up to the tarmac, I was surprised to see Carly waiting by the plane.
I was going to ask her how she was feeling. But by the stern look on her face, I knew this attempt at compassion would be met with a grimace.
“Manny’s been chomping to meet with you,” she said, practically spitting out the words. Carly had never hidden her utter disdain for Manny.
“What about?”
“Probably wants to have your babies,” she snapped. All of a sudden, her face twitched and went pale as the immensity of her words hit home. She quickly shook it off. “Obviously she wouldn’t tell little ole me about her earth-shattering topic.”
Manny. She had been born into the business of the underworld, literally. Her father, leader of the Latin Mafia, had been captain before her, before he was assassinated in broad daylight by a sniper bullet. Everyone knew she had masterminded the assassination. But no one could prove it. And no one dared to bring it up. She hopped into his spot as though he had just been keeping it warm for her. Her beauty, her ruthlessness, her hunger for money had made her popular around the captains’ table and in my bed.
“I’ll talk to her before the big meeting,” I said to Carly as my eyes followed Spider’s car as he drove onto the tarmac.
I went up the stairs, and Carly followed me into our private plane. While I was pouring myself a drink, Spider came in and found himself a seat as far away from us as possible. Unfortunately for him, it was one of our smaller planes.
“I need you to look into something for me,” I said to Carly, loud enough for Spider to hear. “There’s a guy named Mike Westfall. I need you to look into him.”
She shrugged. “What am I looking for?”
I could feel Spider glaring at me.
“He’s got a wife and kid somewhere. You might have a bit of trouble finding them. He’s been trying to hide them.”
“And what am I supposed to do when I find them?”
“Find out what they need and give it to them.” I pushed my seat back and threw a T-shirt over my face.
“That’s completely unclear as usual,” she grumbled.
****
When we landed in Houston, my first meeting was with Kostya, leader of the Russian Mafia in the United States. With saggy cheeks and a fat nose that looked like it had been punched one too many times, Kostya was the ugliest man I had ever met. He still had the marking of the bullet that had slid across his forehead in an assassination attempt … the first time. There were two more attempts after that. He lost his wife over ten years ago to cancer. It seemed that with each isolated year that passed, his eyes sank a little deeper into the sagging skin of his face.
At first glance, Kostya looked like an undereducated thug. But in reality, he was well-spoken and thoughtful.
Nothing was ever as it seemed in the underworld.
In addition to managing his own turf on the East Coast, Kos
tya was responsible for pharmaceutical requisitions. Each captain was accountable for one aspect of our activities, whether it was product or police reports.
Kostya’s car was waiting for us on the tarmac. Spider and I climbed in, leaving Carly to take care of everything else. Our one-on-one meetings were always in a moving vehicle. All of the captains had their idiosyncrasies. This one was his. After three assassination attempts, he was a little jittery.
“We need to drop our Chappelle de Marseille shares,” he announced after offering me a drink that I refused.
This wasn’t news to me. Chappelle de Marseille was the largest distributor of pharmaceuticals to the United States. For years, because of Bill, we’d had an inside into their distribution. Skimming their shipments. Arranging for truck deliveries to go missing. Dropping our shares also meant that we would be taking our business elsewhere.
For the last few months, Kostya had been trying to push me to agree to sell and get out. He had good reason: Chappelle de Marseille was about to undergo extreme government scrutiny following the seizure of its parent corporation. My problem was that the parent corporation was Sheppard Enterprises.
So far, the seizure was just a rumor. Everything had been hushed up by the government to give them a chance to quietly dig into the Sheppard funds before they totally disappeared.
Pulling our shares from Chappelle de Marseille wouldn’t just bankrupt this small company; it would also set off a media frenzy, an avalanche that would bankrupt all of Sheppard Enterprises, Emmy’s family. Emmy had refused to take my money after Carly had given it to her. I feared that if her parents were bankrupt, she would have absolutely nothing to fall back on if things got really bad for her.
I had been trying to stall the inevitable. “What’s our alternative?” I asked him, expecting no answer as had been the case the last few times we had met to discuss this topic.
“Advantis.”
My expression remained uniform. “A little small for our demands, don’t you think?”
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