I shook my head. "I don't know. I had a hot dog from the cart out front for lunch, and my diet is usually just regular food."
“You’re lucky,” Joe said. “Anyway, have a seat. How're things downstairs?"
Joe always referred to the City Council offices as 'downstairs,' like it was some other zip code or something. Ah well. "Not too bad. I've got myself an assistant now, Gwen. She used to work for a PAC."
"Really? I'd heard you had someone, but didn't know that. Do you remember which PAC?"
I shook my head. "I remember she worked for a pretty conservative group, but so far she's been really apolitical with me," I said. "Other than some advice on how to work the systems around here, she's not made a particular stand on any policy issues or anything like that."
"Sounds like a keeper then," Joe replied. "I've had a lot of challenges with that myself recently. So you're getting a feel for your district?"
"Same as when I came in, really. They need community investment, jobs, and someone to break the gangs up. Unfortunately, the city's got its hands full with everything but," I said, taking a seat across from him. Joe liked to sit at his desk for our meetings, but only for convenience's sake. He kept his hand busy writing down anything I said that needed his attention, and the coffee table in the front of the room was just too low. "Those community centers are going to be vital for us. That, and MJT continuing to invest."
"Not to mention the vigilante up in Filmore," Joe replied. "You're getting lots of non-governmental help, it seems."
"It would be better if I had some official government help instead," I said. "Joe, what's the status on getting more cops over to my district? I asked about it last month, but when I ask the Commissioner, I'm getting a lot of run around about manpower shortages. Which is strange since the department's been growing in size for the past four years."
"Which was slashed recently when a lot of cops were caught up in the Fed probe," Joe countered. "The rest are honest cops, at least I hope they are, but the power structure of the department was screwed royally by this. I've got five Captains that weren't even Lieutenants a year ago. On the good side they're hard working cops, but a lot of them are struggling to just figure out their jobs. They're even worse off than you are downstairs."
I had to agree, but still, with the second largest police force in the country, there should have been enough cops even with the problems. "How much of this is Union too?" I asked quietly. "I noticed that the manpower shortages in those areas have gotten worse since the community center project was launched."
"It's not helping," Joe admitted, "but there's nothing that could be proven. The PBA is a strong part of the Union. Same with the City Workers Association. Unless you happen to have a way to break Francine Berkowitz in your back pocket, you just have to work with what you have."
“Bullshit," I muttered to myself, although apparently much louder than I had anticipated as Joe nodded. "You can't do anything about it?"
Joe shook his head. "I'm hanging onto this chair by the skin of my teeth as it is. Now, that was my own damn fault, I'm not going to quibble on that. But right now Patrick, I've got enough on my plate just trying to make sure this entire goddamn city doesn't crumble and turn into Detroit or something. I'd love to fight the Union, take them down and get another brick out of the wall that's holding this city back. But you know what I learned in close to twenty five years of being in politics?"
"What?" I asked, both angry and intrigued. Joe had never been this open with me before, and while not exactly a slimy politician, had played his cards pretty close to the vest. I wondered what had him so damn talkative, but decided I'd figure that out later.
"The wall that's holding the city back, it's part of a larger structure, one that steers and controls the raging river that is the will of the people. Now, some of those bricks you need. They're the flood gates, the channels that prevent damage. You go in there and start smashing the whole damn thing, pretty soon you're going to find yourself up to you neck in a raging torrent, and that same flood is going to be destroying the good bricks along with the bad, going hellbent for leather and sweeping everything, good and bad out of its way. So sometimes, we have to do these things slowly."
"And hope that the next generation who follows in our footsteps agrees with us and is better than we are," I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "And if they're not?"
Joe laughed and took a drink of his weight gain shake. "From what I see, young councilman, the generation following me is on the right track. You're making the connections you need to get things done. I know working around the Union isn't what you’d like, but if anyone can get it done, I suspect you and Tabby Williams can do it."
"Yeah," I said glumly. Joe looked at me askance, and I shook my head. "Nothing."
"All right. Well Patrick, I've got Bill Franklin coming in about twenty minutes, apparently one of his executive vice presidents recently blew his own head off, and now Bill wants me to look into the circumstances around his death. It might tie into your district, by the way. Know anything about a place called Mistress Blood's?"
"Yeah," I said with a shiver. I had met Blood once, and that was enough. "Hard core, and I mean illegally hard core, things went down there. Place had Confederation ties, and if I remember right, Illuysas Petrokias acted as Blood's patron. It got shut down about a month ago or so. From what I read, Blood got herself a fatal case of nine millimeter lead poisoning."
"I assume the local detectives aren't expending a lot of energy in finding her killer?" Joe asked. I shook my head.
"With what she was involved in, most of my district is counting it as chickens coming home to roost. She wasn't as bad as the top heads of the Confederation, but she was a sick, twisted woman. I don't even know what sort of crazy to classify her."
Joe nodded. "Okay, well, I'll talk with Bill. You want to sit in? You being the council member from The Playground and all."
“No thanks Joe, I have some Boy Scouts coming by my office at four. If you don't mind, I think I'll try and keep my soul at least somewhat clean for the rest of the day. Thanks for the talk."
"Let's do it again in about two weeks or so," Joe replied. "I'll have Hank get in touch with your new assistant… Gwen, right?"
"Yeah, Gwen. And that sounds just fine. Thanks again, Joe."
* * *
Mark
The night sky was cloudy, which helped as I made my way through the Park at nearly ten at night. Not the safest thing to do, but I wasn't worried. The Park was a lot better than in the old days, when it had been the realm of street gangs and the Confederation after dark. Now at least, the Confederation was out of it, and the street gangs were too busy seeing if they could get some more profitable turf for their activities. The junkie problem was still bad though.
Thankfully, I wasn't going too deep into the park, just over to the World War I Memorial, near the southwest entrance to the Park. I had my mask on, but the hood pulled up, and had skipped my tactical vest in favor of a belly holster for the one Glock that I was carrying.
My contact was late. The bells of the big clock started to toll, and I was still waiting. I was just about to move off when I saw the approaching shadow, and my contact arrived.
I didn't even know his name, just his handle. We had first met through a website that catered to so-called hacktivists, and eventually coming to know one another. On the website, he went by the screen name Captain Zappy. Who knew where he got that one from.
"Captain."
"Snowman," he said. "Nice to see you in person again."
"It's been a long time. Nice beard."
Zappy stroked his beard, which was a good eight inches long and pretty well kept. Last time him and I had been face to face, he'd been clean shaven. "Nice eye mask. Although I'd have gone with more of a domino mask than the whole Kato thing. That thing has to be hot as fuck in summer."
"We're coming into winter though. It'll help then. I've got something for you."
"Oh? Anything int
eresting?"
I reached into the pocket of my pants and pulled out a flash stick. "You still got connections in the media, right?"
"Some," Zappy replied. "But with so much of the media being corporate nowadays, it's not as easy as it was to get on the air. Online's the way to go nowadays if you want to take someone down. Who you got dirt on?"
"Bishop Gerald Traylor," I replied. "Video and audio. Plus documents."
"Oh? Anything juicy?" Zappy said.
"You could put some of it on Pornland," I replied. "In multiple sections."
Zappy grinned. He was a self professed militant atheist, and loved the idea of taking down a supposed man of God. I didn’t necessarily agree with his religious views, but Gerald needed to go down. ”Nice. Anything else?"
"Take a look. The documents aren't exactly as juicy as the audio or video, but you can connect the dots. I turned a lot of it over to Bennie Fernandez at the DOJ already, he said he'd forward it on to the IRS. But I think you can get me the results I want faster."
"I gotcha," Zappy said. "Can I ask, why do you want this done, Snowman?"
I shook my head. "November fifth is coming up soon enough. I figure you guys can make hay to really kick that off."
Zappy grinned. As a member of the online hacker community Anonymous, among others, he knew exactly what I was talking about. He loved breaking big scandals on or around Guy Fawkes Day. "Well then, let's see if we can make it come a little early this year. All right, I'll get this posted tonight. Question though. Why not you?"
"Don't have the media connections you do," I replied. "You know a lot of my style is more direct than that."
"Damn right it is," Zappy said. He pocketed the flash stick and turned around. "Hang loose, Snowman."
"You too."
Traylor's trap now slowly closing around him, I turned to the next objective I had for the night, namely making sure Filmore Heights was still staying calm. Police response to the area was dropping off, and I wanted to make sure that with the patrols lessening the neighborhood wasn't going to see more gang violence.
I stopped by one of my strike bases, where I kept full kits of my tactical gear in standby. The vest wasn't quite as comfortable as the one I kept at home, it was a little less broken in, a little less perfectly tailored, but it would do the job for the night. As a precaution, I took the one with body armor panels incorporated into the webbing. While not as protective as a full on vest, it did cover my vital areas while still allowing me maximum flexibility and mobility, essential to my methods. I have another two levels of body armor available, just in case, but I wouldn't need it that night.
Like before, I made sure to leave my bike in hidden areas. My first stop was Gangster Disciple territory, where I saw that despite the damage to the donut shop, Tweak Petersen was back in attendance, a brand new plate glass window already installed with lettering on it and everything. Gang money got work done quickly, after all. On the other hand, the GDs were working at least a little less out in the open than before, and I only saw maybe four or five people say anything to him as he sat at his table, nodding his head to music and occasionally messing around with a handheld game system.
I made my way over to Latin King territory, where a unique opportunity presented itself. The Latin Kings were almost the antithesis of the Gangster Disciples, in a lot of ways. Reserved where the GDs were loud and public, this extended all the way up the ladder to their leader, who was known on the streets as El Patron.
Part of it was that El Patron didn't even live in Filmore Heights any longer. While Tweak Petersen still lived in the same streets that he came from, Edgar Villalobos had escaped the streets of Filmore to live uptown, near the Park. I actually knew him from meetings with Sal Giordano, and while the past year hadn't been easy on him, he hadn't come up on my list of people to worry about just yet.
Still, seeing him on the streets of Filmore worried me. Traditionally, Villalobos sent his lieutenants instructions from the safety of his condo near the Park using text messages. Ditching my bike quickly, I barely had time to get to the rooftops before he and his crew came around the corner.
"Patron, I'm worried," one man said. "The vigilante, he listened in, but he hasn't moved on the information our boys said he overheard."
"Perhaps the Dogs did the work for us," Villalobos replied. "They claim they shot one of them."
"Si, Patron, but you know how those donut eaters like to brag. Also, there were two according to them. The other seemed to ride off with no problems. I have a cousin in The Playground, he says that bike belongs to The Snowman. If so, we might have big problems on our hands."
"Why do you think I'm down here? The men need to see I'm not scared of any myth. If The Snowman wants to bring his little game up to Filmore Heights, he's going to find that we're a lot harder to scare than those Confederation bitches. They were strong, but soft in a lot of ways. We're the ones on the edge of the steel every day. We'll see. But the boys need to relax. We'll take care of business."
I'd heard enough, and thought it was time to see if Villalobos was willing to back up his words. Sneaking my hand down into the leg of my pants, I eased one of my backup weapons from its holster.
Blowguns are one of the world's oldest stealth weapons. The darts are light, and in the hands of a skilled user, are very accurate. The main problem with them is that they're limited range obviously.
I had gone with something a little bit more high tech, but still old fashioned. Using high tensile strength rubber and the tube, I combined the ideas of a slingshot with a blowgun. I'd seen similar devices online and from talking to old prison veterans, but mine was certainly stronger than something made from rolled up newspaper, cardboard, and the rubber out of someone's underwear. I could hit accurately at up to fifty meters with the device, and best of all, it was totally silent.
Sighting carefully, I loaded my dart, and sent it into Villalobos' leg, right above his knee. I could have killed him if I'd used some of the darts that I keep on hand, but that wasn't my purpose. I wanted Filmore to stay even until Patrick and I could work together to take all of the groups down. Instead, the drugs inside temporarily paralyzed his leg, making him tumble to the ground with his next step. I took off, and was a rooftop away before the Latin Kings below knew what had even happened. Still, I could hear some yelling, and I hightailed it as hard as I could. I wasn’t going to repeat the same scene as last time.
I was still clearly ahead of them when I got to my bike and twisted the throttle, flying out of Filmore Heights at full speed. I streaked through The Playground before looping the Park area once again and hightailing it up towards home.
The bells of the clock towers around the city were just ringing one o'clock.
Chapter 6
Tabby
I could feel sweat trickling down my back as I waited for Patrick. I'd changed into workout clothes, and looked over at the spot where I had last been with him, the mats where I'd taken him in. My body yearned for him, but my mind still reeled at what he'd said afterwards.
I knew I was still screwed up inside from Scott Pressman. If I had ever needed more proof, it was in the way I'd fled from Patrick after he has said he loved me. Seriously, what person does that? He hadn't been growling or trying to hurt me. In fact, he'd never hurt me, hadn't even raised his voice to me once. When he'd told me, he struggled, and I knew he was telling the truth. He was as surprised by what he'd said as I was.
Even still, it scared the hell out of me. Sophie held me for nearly an hour as I went through hysterics that night, and since then I'd still felt cold sweats every time I went into the gym. Sophie had even changed my workout the day before to outside, taking the time with Mark to haul the weights I was going to use into the backyard of Mount Zion, just so I could get through it.
Today though, I wanted to face my fears. Why should I be chained by the mental fuckery of someone who never cared for me? Should I let Scott Pressman's screwing with my mind forever prevent me from hearing the words
that any person should yearn to hear? Determined, I changed into my exercise clothes and stood in the middle of the gym, tapping my foot while I waited. It was six thirty.
"You know, you don't have to do this," Sophie said to me quietly as she waited with me. "I didn't call him over for this purpose. I called him over to do some training.”
"I know," I replied, "but I can't just go hide in my room or something until I get over it. Besides, we both know he didn't do anything wrong."
Sophie nodded. It’d actually been touching, considering how much he was annoyed by the man, that Mark came in later that night and talked with me about it. He'd been convinced Patrick had meant no harm, and was genuinely broken up by the whole thing. Even Vanessa had done some surreptitious inquiry, giving me a hint into just how widespread the executive assistant network ran. I wondered if I could tap into that somehow.
"You really think he's a good guy?" I asked Sophie. Six twenty nine. He'd have to get there soon or else he would be late.
"Mark seems to think so, and he's got good taste in women at least," Sophie told me, earning a smile from me. I heard the front door of Mount Zion slam, and feet running through the house.
"Sorry I'm late!" Patrick said as he burst into the gym. Seeing me, he stumbled, thankfully near the mats where he could fall instead of near the weight racks. "T... Tabby."
"Patrick," I said. He looked so cute down there, his tie askew and his one shoe off, that I had to smile. "You all right?"
"Uh, yeah," he said. "Just that at the last minute when I was leaving work, I had a phone call from someone, it just delayed me a bit. Sorry about that."
"You should be apologizing to Sophie, not me," I teased. Sophie rolled her eyes and shook her head, walking past me to help Patrick up.
"Patrick, go change. Tabby's going to be doing her own thing today, but you're stuck with me." Patrick nodded, but his eyes were fixed on me, which I had to admit put some warm butterflies in my stomach. Sophie grabbed his jaw in her left hand and turned him towards her, pulling him down to look in the eye.
Ambition 2: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Driven) Page 5