That’s fast. That’s REALLY fast.
Fury was faster – hence the name.
Fury was mine, no-one else got to shoot her. Rage was always with me, and short of a really good fucking reason, Fury was, too.
Anyway, with Fury slung over one shoulder, and Rage strapped to my leg, we walked down the stairs and jumped in the jeep. As we rolled out, I looked over at the kid.
“Wrong way. The Hudson Bridge is further west.”
“Uh, boss, he’s not at the Hudson Bridge, he’s at the Broadway Bridge.”
What the fuck? “Take me back.”
“What?”
“Are you fucking deaf? Take me back to headquarters.”
I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all. I told him the Hudson bridge, and that’s where I was expecting him. Wasn’t gonna tell him that we used that bridge because we already had it set up to blow (fuck, I loved that Semtex shit!) if anyone tried to attack us on it, he didn’t need to now. Course, we also had some guys in the trees on our side, far enough away that they could shoot people on the bridge if they were assaulting our barricades. (What, you didn’t think I was just gonna blow it the instant someone pissed me off, did you?)
The kid dropped me off in front of headquarters, and then headed off – presumably, back to the Broadway Bridge.
Probably 20 minutes later, the same kid came up the stairs, running and out of breath again. “Boss.. he… he… he wants to see you still.”
“Ignore him. Make sure your leader knows to tell the next shift guys to ignore him, too. I told him the Hudson Bridge, anywhere else, fuck him.”
“You got it Boss!” and off he went.
I didn’t hear anything more about it, and after a week, I started figuring that he’d changed his mind, and didn’t have a deal for me after all. That’s fine, I don’t care if that fucker is the goddamn general, he’s not calling the shots on my turf.
I called up Lisa again – man, I do love the redheads – and got my rocks off in her a couple of times to take the edge off, and then sent her back home when I decided to go to bed. (Sleep there? Fuuuuck no. Next thing you know, they’ve got a knife to your throat and you wake up dead. No thanks.) The next morning, when the night shift guys came back from the patrols, Redskinny was with them – that was strange enough, since normally he worked during the daytime only.
“Boss, something weird’s going on.”
“Like what?”
“Last night… roaming patrols saw someone trying to land a boat of the Hudson river, up by the boat place on West 254th street. They scared him off – but he had some kinda motor on the boat.”
“Then, a couple hours later, someone tried to head up Bronx River… From what the guys say, it sounded like it might be the same guy.”
“That sounds kinda stupid. Just one guy?” I asked.
“Yeah, sounds like. By himself, which is weird, too.”
“Have the patrols overlap and shift them on the clock so the new shift comes on at 5am, and the shift before doesn’t go off till 7am. Give ‘em each a few extra bucks per day to make up for it.” I’d read that the really stupid hours in the morning was when people were least awake, even if they were awake, and I wanted extra eyes watching.
“You got it boss.”
That was the end of it. We didn’t find out about any more boats trying to sneak in, no more people trying to sneak across bridges (and if it wasn’t obvious, we’d already secured the other bridges, too, all the way down to I-95).
It was probably a month after I’d seen Chuck – and I’d pretty much forgotten about it, until some hot little piece of ass with a shirt that was WAY too small for her tits came jiggling out of a jeep in front of headquarters. She came upstairs, and knocked on my door.
“Yeah, come in.”
“Hey Boss..” she had a half smile on her face – damn, I loved women who came at me like that. “You got a visitor on the Hudson Bridge, says he’s not waiting any longer than 20 minutes.”
“Fuck.”
“Well, if you’re gonna put it that way!” She skinned off that little shirt and squeezed her tits, then reached for her fly..
“Later, tits, I gotta meet this guy.”
She pouted for a sec, then grabbed her shirt and started to put it back on.
“Oh, no, leave it off, I wanna watch while you drive me back.”
She grinned and winked, and I followed her out the door, grabbing Fury as I walked out, and we headed to the jeep. She went to get in the driver’s seat and I pushed her over to the passenger seat, getting in and undoing my fly before shifting into gear. “What are you waiting for? It ain’t gonna suck itself!” Her mouth was on me in a flash, and I laughed as we zoomed down Hudson Parkway towards the bridge. Shame she was so interested; that screamed “I want something” and I wasn’t in a giving mood – not even with that fantastic blowjob she was working. I pulled up partway onto the top level of the bridge, and pushed her head off.
“Come over after your shift’s done, tits, and you can finish that – and then I’ll finish you.”
She laughed a little.. “Yes boss, you got it!”
I zipped up as I got out of the jeep, then grabbed Fury out of the back seat where I’d laid her (ha! Wasn’t the only thing I was gonna lay in the backseat of this jeep today!), and slung her over one shoulder, walking at my usual pace towards the barricade.
“Let him through.”
They pulled one barricade back, and sure enough, there was Chuck.
“Okay, I’m here, what do you want?”
“What, no love for your best friend in the… WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GET THAT?”
“Get what?”
“The M34 is mil and police only, and they are ALL accounted for.”
“Look around, bub.” By now, the barricade was back in place and there were no less than half a dozen of my gang standing in a half circle, M34’s held at the low ready. I gotta say, they looked fuckin’ kick-ass with the black multicam, the weapons… it reminded me of actual soldiers.
Chuck’s lips pursed and he was quiet for a moment. “Okay, fair enough, whatever kid. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
I laughed. “Here we are. Talk.”
He looked at me… “No, somewhere private.”
“This is as far as you go. This is my turf, I call the shots here. Wanna try that knock me on my ass shit again?” I was starting to get angry, and I unslung Fury, and flipped off the safety… once, to “semi”, and then again, to “burst”, and then a third time, to “Full Auto.” Slowly, clenching my jaw harder with every click of the fire control selector.
“Okay kid, just take it easy, no need to do things you’re gonna regret later. I’m pretty sure you want to hear what I have to say, and from the looks of how you run things, You don’t want anyone else knowing until you decide they need to know, am I right?”
He had a point.. This guy was creepy how much he played with words to get what he wanted. “Whatever. Get in the jeep.”
I handed Fury to tits. “Hang onto that, don’t shoot it, and it goes no-where until I get back. I find out otherwise, and you’ll be eating it.” I turned briefly to the gang leader who was here.. “I’m leaving in a hurry, and not stopping till I get BACK here. If I’m not back in an hour, send a jeep with guys straight up Hudson parkway – if he tries any funny shit, I’ll wreck the jeep – and I want you guys hunting him down in case he gets away. Gonna drive up Hudson to the Mosholu parkway then loop back.
Chuck was sitting in the passenger seat, and I got in the driver’s seat. I chirped the tires as we pulled out, and told him.. “you’ve got about 10 minutes if I drive fast, 20 minutes tops if I slow a little bit. If the jeep stops, you’re a dead man, no fuckin’ around. Talk.”
I’m not gonna bore you with the details, I’m just gonna lay it out there.
Chuck…. was actually not “Chuck” at all. Colonel Doug Bradburry ran a recruiting group that had a few people embedded in the tenement organizations, as well
as a few inside the arkscrapers (although not as many there, no need). He was, well, a recruiter. They were looking for smart kids, the ones who “got it” – the ones who were gonna rise to the top, or die on the way there, and ideally, get them off the streets before they died. He figured I might be one of those kids, and after seeing me NOT dead, and with Deke’s gang on the supply run, he figured it was worth pursuing.
He was offering… out. Everything I wanted – money, power, women, weapons, toys, and while not a lot at first, but in time: control. “You’re a natural leader, kid. Not just a manager, not just an administrator – you’re the real deal, the kind of person that if you don’t die before you get to basic training, if you don’t fuck up bigtime, you could be a damn good officer that other soldiers admire, that they’ll follow… that they’ll LIKE. Like, I might add, me.”
This was, obviously, a problem – because I had a lot of that already. What Chuck – Doug – Colonel Bradburry, I mean – was offering, was a bigger risk than what I already had, and was a lot less than what I figured I’d end up with on my own.
By the time we’d gotten to the Mosholu loop, I’d slowed down, because… I wanted to hear more. Yeah, a lot of what he was offering, I already had – but he was offering something else, that I didn’t have, and something I don’t think I’d ever have, but I wanted, I craved. I wanted approval. Something about the simple, “no shit” way he talked about what he’d seen made me want his approval – a lot like I’d always wanted (and never got) from Pip.
I cut my speed down to maybe 15 or 20 miles an hour – still enough to wreck the jeep and fuck him up if I had to – but I wanted more time.
“I know what it’s like, James. I grew up a bit like you; I was the smart kid that couldn’t trust anyone. I know how much it sucks to have to keep everyone at arm’s length. I won’t lie to you, this isn’t going to solve that – but it means you don’t quite have to push people away. There are rules in the military, just like there are on the streets – different rules – but I’m pretty confident you’d be okay with them.”
“I also know you’re planning a war against the tenement bosses.”
I slammed on the brakes.
“There is NO fucking way you could know that!”
“Well, you just confirmed it, dumbass. I did know, though. Who do you think made sure the 50th precinct was stocked with weapons and ammo? I tried to play it up like you shouldn’t have the M34’s, but I knew as soon as I saw your bridge team armed with them.”
I wanted to cry.
“You’ve done an amazing job, kid. I couldn’t have done what you’ve done, even with the advantages you had with the safehouse. Course, I had other things I had to work through – but if you want to talk more, I’m happy to explain more to you about what I went through and how it worked for me. It won’t necessarily work for you, but I think it’ll help you make more sense out of why I’m doing this.”
I put the jeep back in motion, maybe ten miles an hour if that. “Why the fuck should I bother? You say you know what I’m doing, you know I can make it work, so-“
“No, kid. You can’t. You’ll have about 3000 effectives – WAY more than any other tenement. You’ve got weapons far in excess of anything any of them will have – including the, yes, the M34s I got you. I didn’t expect you’d have scrounged up as much as you had otherwise, though. Sorry kid, but the second you try to knock out a tenement or two with a little army of that size – the US Army is going to walk in and pound your ass like you pound that cute little redhead. If you’d been… NOT as good as you are? We’d probably not be talking right now, and you’d probably have a good chance of knocking over at least a couple of tenements before they ganged up on you. Heck, you might even be able to tackle an arkscraper or two, and fight and scrape your way to the top the hard way.”
Motherfucker. How did this asshole know so much???
“So, James… You really have two options. Stay where you are, keep whatcha got… or take my offer.”
“I have a third option, too.”
“No, kid, you don’t. That option is a quick death, and I know precisely how fast it will happen – because I used to command the regiment that will roll over you as if you never even existed. I don’t want that for you, kid. I think you can go places, and I think you can do a lot more than just be an impressive little warlord.”
We pulled back onto the bridge. “Get out.”
“You sure you don’t want to talk mo-“
“GET OUT.”
“Okay kid.” He got out of the jeep, and walked back to the barricades. I motioned to the gangers to pull them aside and let him through, and watched as he walked the few steps past. Before they rolled the barricades back in place, he turned as if his heels were on top of nails, and swung his arm up – so fast that several of my guards actually responded by bringing their rifles up.”
That cocksucker saluted me.
Chapter 9: Decision time.
Chuck – I mean Doug – I mean…. Fuck it. That asshole Bradburry, had really caused me more grief and frustration in 20 minutes of talking than anyone else ever had, ever. EVER. He seemed to know what I wanted, what I craved, and even gave me a little of it and promised a lot more.
The cost was merely everything else I had.
I had tits drive me back to headquarters. I didn’t say a word; she was flirting, obviously wanting a pony ride, but I just wasn’t interested. I got out and took Fury with me. As I turned away and was walking back towards the front door, I stopped and turned to look at her – she still had her shirt off, with those fantastic tits bared to the world. “Where are you staying?”
Her face lit up. “I’m actually in the building just the other side of the warehouse from here. You wanna come visit?”
“Maybe, maybe I’ll send someone to send you back here later.”
“I’m Candi… everyone knows who I am… well, almost everyone – and the one I want to know, doesn’t seem to.” She mock pouted at me, poking out her lower lip.
“Get the fuck back to the bridge, tits. I might call ya later.” Priorities. If you can’t get laid, what’s the point of being the boss? She drove off as I walked back inside.
Everything. SO much, and at the same time, so little. I knew there were ‘better things’… the arkies lived like fuckin’ kings; we were animals that they didn’t even bother to notice. Even the tenement gangs lived better than we did… well, sort of. Most of them bought into whatever the arkies told them; we were free out here, free to do whatever we wanted, free to live however we pleased.
I continued making plans for knocking out the first tenement gang closest to us, just south of I-95. They’d made occasional incursions into our territory and every time, we just swallowed up the fighters they sent. Since they were so close, we didn’t take prisoners – we just killed ‘em, and quietly. Ambush tactics were becoming a big favorite with most of my boys – nice and quiet, no fuss, no muss, just… go to sleep and don’t wake up, and no-one else needs to know.
I seriously considered using that method to slowly take over the tenement I was targeting.. until, one day, the leader of the gang that infiltrated the neighborhood that our target tenement was in came back from the raid (yes, we were on the offensive now) and told me, “Boss, the building we staged out of, for last night’s raid, had some weird shit written on the windows facing the tenement.. “James, Stop.” It wa’n’t there two nights ago on the last hit, and I heard someone tell your real name was James. Wuzzup with that?”
“It was a message for me, nevermind, I’ll deal with it. You guys did good, get some rest.” Dear ol’ Dougie was at it again, reminding me that he was watching more than I saw, and knew more than I was learning. FUCK.
Tonka was still sending teams back and forth to a couple of the tenements (including, ironically, the one we were slowly decimating) to get trade shit. We were producing enough ethanol now that we only needed the gas to mix with it (when we weren’t drinking it); we also were growing en
ough food to cover all of our people (and we were STILL growing!), and the other stuff we got was more for comfort, than actual need. We’d stripped a lot of houses clean, but we still had a lot to go – so I wasn’t worried about supplies drying up.
“Get Tonka in here. Need to talk to him.” I yelled out the door of my office, knowing that someone out there would hear me, and send a runner (or go running, themselves) to get him.
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