Buffalo Soldiers (An Upstate New York Mafia Tale Book 2)

by Nicholas Denmon

  “Christ Kira!” Both of his hands braced against the dash and then the sudden stop flung him back into his seat.

  Gina just laughed harder and Kira heard her snort again.

  “What? We’re here.”

  Bobby let his eyes linger on her for a minute and then slowly shifted from rage to the normal fan-boy look he always gave her. He climbed out of the Escalade and Gina climbed out of the backseat.

  “Thanks for the ride, Kira.” She wiped soda from her face and her mascara streaked along her face. Kira smiled back. One thing she always appreciated about Gina was her ability to genuinely laugh and laugh hard.

  “No problem.” She watched Gina sling her backpack over her shoulder and walk towards her two story paneled home. Bobby lingered, pretending to gather his bag together.

  He always does this.

  “You sure you don’t wanna hang out for a bit? My parents are still at work. Could be fun?” He shut the door and leaned in through the open window. He smiled again but all Kira could see in those pearly whites were the faces of the other dozen or so girls who had fallen for his grin.

  “No Bobby. I really got shit to take care of.” Kira pulled the Escalade out of park.

  “Okay. You got my number if you change your mind, or wanna talk, or anything.” He brushed a hand through his hair and it fell right back to where it was before he ‘fixed’ it.

  “I’m sure ‘anything’ would suit you just fine.” Kira rolled her eyes.

  “It might suit you just fine, too.” Again with the smile.

  Doesn’t this guy know any other moves?

  “Good bye Bobby.” She pressed the gas and Bobby pulled away from the window in a hurry. She left him there, his mouth lying on the pavement while she threatened to run it over.

  She smiled despite herself.

  She drove through the neighborhood with its old elm trees lining the road. They stretched their fingers above the pavement from one side to the other. The branches from trees on one side clasped the fingertips of the branches from trees on the other. They created a beautiful green canopy that let in small patches of the fading sunlight.

  A sappy love song was dripping out of her speakers, barely audible. She felt a tear fill her eye and suddenly felt her ears grow warm again. She violently wiped the tear away and swallowed so hard she nearly choked.

  Fumbling with the radio she turned the volume up and flicked the station over. After a few stations of pure unadulterated crap she hit the auxiliary button and put her iPod on her familiar playlist. Some rap thumped through the speakers but she was already beyond the music and back in her own head.

  Before she knew it, she found her car parked in the Galleria Mall parking lot. The Escalade had been parked for some time but her white knuckles still clutched the wheel. Her breath fought against her lungs and threatened to burn them to ashes before the fire inside her would dissipate.

  Kira took slow and deliberate breaths but her lips quivered.

  You have to steady yourself. Let the fire burn inside but be as calm as still water on the outside.

  She glanced in the rearview, catching her water stained eyes. Twin rivers split her cheeks but were drying up fast. She closed her eyes and felt the wet lashes come together. She released her grip from the wheel and wiped tears from her face with her thumbs. She grabbed her purse and looked up at the rearview one last time then she pulled out a pair of black too-big sunglasses and dropped them over the upper half of her face. She grabbed a Yankee hat off of the floorboard on the passenger side and pulled it down over her head.

  With one last breath she grabbed the door handle and paused as her eye caught the dangling crucifix from the rearview. Her lips came together, her cheeks tightened.

  “You had to take all of them. Fine. Fuck you, too.” She pushed open the door and climbed out of the Escalade. Slamming the door shut behind her she looked in her purse for her familiar items. The Baby Browning and pawn stared up at her. She set her face, trying to exude a sense of calm, slung her purse across her body and over one shoulder and set a brisk pace as she crossed the parking lot.

  The sun was well into its descent and a long shadow crept over the mall. It crawled along the pavement and beckoned to Kira. Even though dusk threatened, the black tar of the lot radiated its stored heat and draped around Kira like an invisible sauna. Beads of sweat lined her forehead but it was a matter of moments before she reached the electric sensors that parted the mall’s doors in front of her.

  The air-conditioned blast sent her skin into goose bump mode but she ignored it and walked as fast as she could with out attracting attention towards the fountain and wishing pool. Her heartbeat punched her left ear and then her right in perfect rhythm.

  White columns escorted her as she walked; reaching their arms upward and beyond the grey trim that marked the floor of the second level. Shops lined the way and several twisting staircases were busy with shoppers pretending that whatever they were doing was important. Their chatter echoed under the tall ceilings and across the tiled floors.

  The smell of hamburger and cheap Chinese food drifted along the corridors and Kira’s stomach reminded her that it existed by immediately nipping her lower intestine. It defensively knotted up and growled back in protest.

  Focus.

  The chatter drifted away. The food court was only remembered by her stomach and even that began to forget. Kira’s heart retreated back into her chest where it belonged.

  As she approached the fountain nearly all of the people around her faded into insignificant obscurity. She scanned the area for “pieces.”

  To win the game you must know the pieces. You must know where they are and what they intend to do. Not only what they intend to do, but what role the hand intends for them to fulfill.

  His words echoed back into her consciousness.

  Who’s important? Who’s a player?

  Continuing her scan, she stopped at a kiosk and purchased a rope necklace. A man with a dark mustache and darker face lurked around the corner from the fountain. But just as quickly as Kira began to consider him a small child ran up to him and he bent down to scoop her up and she flung her arms around him. Kira looked away and continued.

  A man lying on a bench.

  A cripple.

  An old man pushing a yellow cleaning cart on the second floor. He wore blue overalls and had his hand in a paper bag. He pushed the cart painfully slow, but any faster and he might crack his frail back in two. He looked over the ledge for a moment, his lips tightened in recognition and Kira knew.

  Uncle Dick.

  A master of disguise. The only way she knew him was by those lips. The scar on the bottom lip that trailed to his chin was unforgettable if barely perceptible.

  Walking towards the fountain once more, Kira scanned the crowd. She eased herself onto the bench in front of the fountain. She could feel its mist drift over her. Her skin contracted and a shiver crawled up her neck.

  She felt him before she saw him. The shiver faded with the mist but the hairs on her neck stood up with the sound of the footsteps to her left and she instinctively put her hand in her purse, grabbing the Featherweight Baby Browning inside. She slid across the bench to the far right and with her purse on her lap angled the hidden gun towards the remaining seat.

  His words came back again, unbidden, as always.

  Even a pawn can take out a king.

  He sat next to her and immediately the stench of day-old vodka lifted off of his clothing and stung her nostrils. When he sat down, she refused to look at him. She could see his hand resting on his knee out of the corner of her eye and it wiped off a palm on a pair of soiled jeans. A tiny tattoo stained his skin. A small black spider with intricate detail posed there, a red diamond emblazoned on its bulbous body.

  The man spoke and the smell of vodka grew with each syllable. “So glad of you to come. My compatriots didn’t think you would. But we all have our price, no?” He spoke softly and deliberately. The man obviously had an accent
but she couldn’t place it yet. He didn’t turn his head to face her either. She studied his jaw line and the black stubble that unevenly stretched across his angular features.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Kira grabbed her pistol, feeling the calming presence in her grip. Her phone vibrated against her hand and she knew the money transfer must be complete.

  The man smiled and his skin stretched across his bones. He laughed but it came out more like a cough. He wiped his nose with his other hand and continued. “You know who we are. We bought you. You can call me, what’s the American word? Boss. You can call me boss or maybe you can call me Daddy. Would you enjoy this? Calling me Daddy?”

  His accent was definitely Eastern European. His words seemed to push out from the back of his throat as if he might spit on the floor. Kira wanted nothing more than to make him spit his teeth on the tile right there in front of the fountain.

  “Watch your tongue unless you want to lose it.” He finally turned his head to face her and she looked into his eyes. They seemed to look past her and they danced in a small pool of liquid. She knew he was high

  I don’t have time for these games.

  “One last time, who the fuck are you or I walk.” Her palm felt sweaty and she wanted to wipe it off on her shirt but she dared not unless she left the security of the pistol behind in her purse. Her heart ricocheted around her chest.

  Something isn’t right.

  The man chuckled and looked up at the ceiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Fine. Fine. But no names. You have Whisper, I have Black Widow.” He held his hand up to her, giving her a better view. It looked more menacing up close and she also saw small tick marks along half the legs of the spider. The other legs were bare. They appeared to be markers of some sort.

  The Black Widow saw her eyeing them and laughed again. “One hair on the leg for each of them.”

  “Each of who?” Kira knew the answer before the question fully escaped her lips.

  He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. The smile stretched across the bones of his face again. “Some of them had names. Yes. Faces, too. Now they are all ghosts. Like you. Like him. The one you put to sleep for us. Whispers in the night, each one.” His eyes darted around the mall, jumping left and right and up and down in no particular order and with no apparent focal point. “But enough of this, how do you say, chat? You come now.”

  “It’s chatter dick face. And I’m going nowhere. I was told you had a deal for me, twice the rate as last time. Either spit it out or I’m fucking gone. This is your last chance.” Kira glanced up at the rail on the second floor from behind her sunglasses. The man with the yellow cart was looking into the buggy, apparently searching for cleaning supplies.

  The Black Widow laughed again. He laughed loud and his body quaked. He laughed until a tear slid down his face and dropped off of his jaw. Kira watched him, unsure of how to proceed.

  This is why I don’t fucking meet clients.

  “What is this, this ‘dick face’? Like the genitals but of the face?” He gave another shoulder laugh and continued. “I like this very much. I will remember.” He turned and looked her in the eye. The gray orbs darted out from their shallow pools and locked on hers. “I will remember you made me laugh. Now get your little woman’s bag and come.”

  The heat came along her collar again and it took every fiber of her being to keep from squeezing the trigger of her Baby. This close and the little Baby would have a nasty bite. The damned phone vibrated against her hand again, letting her know she hadn’t checked it yet. She wanted to shoot this fuck. She wanted to answer the phone. Instead she returned the laugh.

  The Black Widow turned to look at her, but she ignored him and leaned forward in the bench. “You ignorant fuck. You think I just waltzed into here?” She glanced one more time at the old man on the rail and scanned the area as she spoke.

  “I see your man up top with the 1985 jeans.” He stood about a dozen feet from Uncle Dick. A man with a small pair of headphones leaned forward, looking over the crowd. He was eating a large soft pretzel. The hand that held it was etched with black ink that spread out along in his fingers completing a spider web. “A pair of headphones? Really? Ever hear of a fucking iPod? You foreigners stick out like a sore thumb.” Moving from the rail her eyes shifted to the cripple walking circles around the fountain. Kira pretended not to notice his eye flick across her and then dart to another side of the floor. “Or the ugly bastard doing a piss poor Tiny Tim impression? He keeps switching which leg is the broken one. What about the fat fuck on the bench pretending to sleep? I know the game asshole. And you think I came here alone? Fuck you.”

  She stood up to leave, her hand leaving her purse as she pushed up to rise. She made to walk away but a vice gripped her arm and she spun around, pulled by the clenched and boney fingers of The Black Widow. His face still wore a smile but his eyes tried to strangle her where she stood.

  “You are right.” His voice was even and smooth through his accent. “He is fat,” he said, waving a hand towards the man on the bench. Then he nodded towards the cripple and said, “And he is ugly. Very ugly. I promise I won’t tell him though. It might make him angry and uglier.”

  Kira tried to pull away from his grip but he just tightened it and she felt as if her bones might snap in half.

  “But you are also wrong. Very wrong. We aren’t ignorant baby girl. You might be the Whisper but we are the ones who weave the webs.” His smile dropped from his face as if rinsed off of his skin.

  “What the FUCK are you babbling about?” As Kira’s voice raised a bit of spit flew from here lip. The man on the bench got up and began to walk towards them, his eyes shifting amongst the crowd. A few shoppers glanced back at the small scene but otherwise continued on with their lives.

  “Babbling? What is this babbling? Never mind, little doll. What I say is, I say you are stuck. Like a…” He trailed off and spun his finger in the air in front of him in small meandering circles.

  “A fly.” Kira calmed herself and looked around. She faced away from Uncle Dick and had no clue what he was up to, if anything.

  “Yes. Like a small fly.” His eyes roamed the length of her body and sent a tingle along her spine. “Or a small girl.”

  The cripple closed in on her from her left.

  I must act now or never. If I can get my damned gun, I’ll shoot my way out of this damned mall.

  Kira wrenched her hand violently towards herself, trying to pull free. The Black Widow leaped from his feet as she tried to spin around and caught her. But she was facing the direction of where she last saw Uncle Dick. The cleaning cart was still there but he wasn’t. Her eyes darted along the rail as the Black Widow came up behind her, still pinning her left wrist to her right hip. His right hand held her wrist firmly there and he pulled her close to his body. The stench of his breath nearly made her gag but she had no time to think about it before a calloused hand grabbed her chin and the Black Widow forced her gaze to the right of the cleaning cart.

  Uncle Dick had his hands on the railing and looked down at her. The man with the pretzel stood next to him, his hand inside his jacket. Another man in a black T-shirt, impossibly large, stood behind him, arms crossed.

  How did I miss that one?

  The Black Widow whispered in her ear and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her earlobe and along the nape of her neck. A few shoppers slowed their walking and one lady looked at the two of them with obvious concern.

  Why doesn’t this guy give a shit?

  “Welcome to my web little girl. A spider needs blood to survive. I intend on surviving.”

  Kira squirmed but his grip closed even tighter. She felt him nod his head and the man in the black shirt nodded back. He pulled out a cell and pressed his finger on it, appearing to enter a number.

  For a second, everything went still.

  The shoppers paused mid stride. The fountain stopped mid-flow. His breath stopped tickling her neck. Her heart stopped its incessant
pounding. Her phone stopped vibrating.

  Then came the ball of fire. It leapt through the glass of a shoe shop about twenty yards down the walkway. It rolled over half a dozen shoppers. Tiny shards flew like missiles and hit the crowd of passing people like buckshot. Clothing, bags, and skin shredded with equality. They fell in mangled heaps; the floor slickened with their blood. The ones on the fringe of the blast flew backwards like tin men. They lifted from their feet, some leaving sandals and shoes behind, and landed prone a dozen feet from the main carnage.

  Silence.

  A shriek echoed across the tiled walkway. The wailing of the wounded slowly began to fill the mall as others ran from the scene. More ran forward to help their friends, family, and unknown fallen.

  Kira reflexively looked at the explosion, but the Black Widow ripped her chin back around and whispered, “Look.”

  She looked at the men above. One clubbed Uncle Dick over his head and sent him sprawling forward with legs gone useless. The other man caught him and together they began to drag him from the railing.

  “Uncle!” She thrashed. She tried to stomp her foot. For a moment she wrenched free. She spun about to run. “I’ll kill you!” Her screams were lost in the screams of a hundred others.

  It was then that she knew.

  That’s why he was so calm.

  She reached into her bag hoping to grab her pistol. She felt the cool steel in her grip and swung back around; just in time to meet the cane of a cripple. Tiny fireworks blasted out the back of her skull and through her ears. Blood filled her mouth.

  As she fell to the floor she pulled the trigger and heard the gunshot.

  Everything went black for a moment and then she was staring at her purse and the scattered contents along a horizontal view. Her phone lay on its side facing her, the unread text message blazing across the screen all caps.

  “RUN.”