I wait calmly until the wiry, curly-haired man in the center spits out his cigarette and lowers his gun. “Hey, I know you. You’re that hitman Stephanos hired to bump the suit.”
“Yes. You may call me Victor.”
The wiry man narrows his eyes at me for a moment, then relaxes. “I’m Spiro. That’s Uzi, Kill Zone, Bruiser, and Joe.” He gestures to each of his friends in turn.
“A pleasure.” They’re all scowling at me with varying degrees of distrust. I raise my bare palms to show my intent. “May I?”
When no one says anything, I bend down slowly and pick up the gun. “Kill Zone?” I offer it to the man who dropped it. He blinks slowly and takes it.
Uzi still has his weapon trained on me.
“I remember there being more of you the last time I visited,” I muse. “Where is the gentleman who drove me from the wedding?”
“That was Johnson,” Joe pipes up. He’s a big, ugly man wearing a white tank top under an ill-fitting suit jacket. He’s broad in the shoulder and tall, but not as tall as Uzi. “Got hit by a bullet in the shootout at Cavalli’s. You know, the one with the broad.” He mimes a woman opening her coat. He’s speaking of Lula, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from flicking a knife into his throat.
When I first heard the story of the naked woman who walked into Cavalli’s and started shooting, I was filled with both pride and rage. Rage that she would be so reckless. Pride that she could be so brave. She came so close to snuffing her life out before I could claim her.
Perhaps after another round with the dragon tail, she will have atoned.
“The one who shot Stephanos?” I ask as if I’m not aware of the facts.
“Yeah.”
“Do you know who she was?”
“Some hooker Stephanos did dirty,” Spiro says. “That’s what I heard. Johnson took a bullet and went back to his people in Chicago.”
“And what about Bruno?” I ask after Stephanos’ right-hand man.
“Bruno’s loyal,” Spiro says, and the rest of the gang nods. They’re calmer now, warming up to me. With every passing moment, Uzi lets the gun muzzle bow another inch.
“I need to speak to Stephanos,” I say
Uzi jerks his gun back up.
After a glance around the room, Spiro answers. “We haven’t seen him in ten or twelve weeks.”
“So long? Who’s paying you?”
“We’ve got jobs.”
“I know you are busy,” I say, allowing them to keep their respect. A quick perusal of the video footage showed them waiting around, eating pizza rolls Spiro bought at the dollar store and cooked in the restaurant microwave. There was some talk of moving equipment left unguarded on the docks, but when Spiro looked into it, the equipment was already gone. “I am prepared to pay you for your time. There’s a briefcase there on the front stoop. Locked, but the code is today’s date.”
Spiro jerks his head at Joe, and the big man lumbers off. Clouds of dust billow up when he opens the door. After looking left and right, he brings the briefcase inside.
“Don’t open it,” Uzi says. His voice is higher than you’d expect from a grown man. “Could be a bomb.”
“Then he’d blow himself up too, dumbass,” Spiro says. “Today’s date, you say?”
At my nod, Spiro enters the code. The case opens slowly, and the men freeze. You’d think I had handed them a bomb, not a case full of unmarked bills.
“What the fuck is this?” Spiro snarls.
“This was half the take Stephanos advanced me for the wedding. You can split it among yourselves.”
Joe scratches his chin again. “What’s the catch?”
“I require the rest of the payment. I never received it. I need to contact Stephanos, and to do that, I need your help.”
