2015-
Jason Parley looked at the gates, and the mansion beyond. Business had been good
for Robert Tortelli. He could understand wanting to keep that business against all
comers. Too bad that the King had arrived, and expectations had to be laid out.
“What are we doing here, Jace?” Gus Greer sat behind the wheel of their unmarked
car. His partner had changed in the last five years in a frightening way. He hadn’t
crossed the line yet, but it was only a matter of time. “We shouldn’t be here.
Especially not now.”
The reason they shouldn’t be there was Lily Krantz, an 83 year old accountant. She
had witnessed a crime that was tied back to Tortelli and his goons. The Cap had
ordered Parley and Greer to guard her until trial. That was why she was sitting in the
back seat listening to the detectives talk.
“Drive around, Gus.” Parley opened the door. “I’m just going to have a talk.”
“This is a bad move, Jace.” Greer stared at his partner. “It could be considered
tampering.”
“I’m just going to have a talk with the man.” Jason turned a smile on his partner. The
lightning bolt scar on his forehead seemed to gleam against his pale skin. “Just drive
around the block until I come out.”
“What if you don’t come out?,” asked Mrs. Krantz from the back seat. “They could
kill you.”
“Then I expect you to avenge me.” Parley smiled at her. The thought of a retired
grandma taking on the mob was the stuff of movies. “Don’t worry. It’ll be a snap.”
Parley got out of the car and headed up to the gate. The automobile pulled off at a
sedate pace. Gus was an expert driver. If he wanted to crash the party, he could
despite his self-doubt.
Parley paused at the gate. Two men stood guard on the other side. They looked at him
with bored expressions. He knew that he didn’t look that impressive, barely making
the height requirement, wearing a rumpled suit, old cowboy boots on his feet.
He thought he was the more dangerous of the three of them. But, he admitted, most
fighting people did.
“Open the gate, please.” Parley stood with his hands in his pockets.
“Got a warrant?” The bigger man on the left moved to stand right next to the bars on
the other side. “Otherwise, no. Mr. Tortelli is too busy to see you.”
“There’s an easy way and a hard way to this.” Parley scratched the side of his head
with an index finger. “The easy way is to let me by and go in peace. The hard way is
to impede me and never open a gate again, much less hold a spoon to feed yourself.
Now is the time to think.”
“The answer is still no, cop.” The man pointed down the street with his thumb. “Beat
it.”
Parley grabbed the man’s tie and yanked him into the bars of the gate. He did it again
to make sure the man was too stunned to stop him. He pulled the keeper’s arms
through the bars and twisted his hands. Cracking of bone followed the move. He
turned to the other man, pistol in hand.
“Do you want what he got?,” Parley asked.
The man held up his hands, shaking his head.
“Open the gate and let me by.” Parley put the pistol away. “It will be better for you
in the long run.”
The second man did what he was told, opening the gate with one hand while holding
his other up. He stepped back, raising the other hand.
“Take your friend to the hospital.” Parley stepped through the opened portal. “They
might be able to save his arms if you hurry.”
Parley walked through the grass island in the middle of the circular driveway leading
to the big house. He stepped over the three steps to a stone stage three feet wide. He
knocked on the door. Pebbled glass sat in insets on either side of the door, and above
the frame. He didn’t see a peephole so he supposed the door man had to open the door
to see who was visiting.
The door opened like he expected. A goon looked down at him. He shoved the door
out of the way and stepped across the threshold.
“You can’t come in here.” The goon held up his hands. “Get out of here.”
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“I’m here to talk to Mr. Tortelli.” Parley shook his head. “Once I am done, I will
leave. Getting in my way is only going to get you hurt. Be wise and stand aside for
the amount of time I am going to take. I would hate to dash your brains out in an
instant if you keep standing there.”
The tone of Parley’s voice said he would love to dash someone’s brains out in an
instant, and he didn’t care how many those brains happened to be.
“I’ll get in trouble if I don’t at least try.” The door man looked down the hall. “You’re
going to have to go.”
Parley punched him in the face so fast it was like he barely moved before the man
crashed against the wall and fell to the floor. He made sure he hadn’t killed the man
before he continued his march to the middle of the mansion.
The Organized Crime boys said Tortelli had a room in the middle of his place where
he did business. No one had been able to bug it successfully. They were sure he had
put it in the middle of the house to help defend it from them.
Parley found the door to the room. He knocked on it and frowned at the metallic thud
that answered. He found a button beside the door and pressed it. He noted the
presence of a camera and a speaker. He placed his badge in plain view of the camera.
“Who are you?” The voice sounded like it was ready for a fight.
“Jason Parley.” Parley put his badge in his pocket. “Open the door for me.”
“Or what?” The question might have been innocent enough, or maybe the owner felt
that Parley wouldn’t do anything since he was a cop.
“I start breaking your decor.” Parley picked up a vase with a bunch of flowers in it.
“When I am done, I will burn the place down whether you open the door, or not.”
“Put that down.” The voice didn’t quite sound scared.
“Oops.” Parley opened his hands and dropped the vase. He caught it before it could
hit the floor. “I wonder how many pieces I can break this into with one kick.”
The door hissed open. The group of men looking at him were not the picture of
happiness. He smiled at them as he put the vase back on its stand.
“Hello, Slim.” Parley stepped into the room, identifying the one man who was not
nervous or angry that he was there. Slim Servo was a fair bodyguard with a realistic
expectation of what he could do in any situation. He had probably advised them not
to open the door under any circumstances on the grounds he couldn’t protect any of
them from Parley’s rage.
That earned a little respect from the King.
“What do you want, cop?” Tortelli was a tall man, bulky like his men, wearing a
better suit. He sat behind a desk with a glass top. Papers covered the top.
“You’re on trial for RICO charges.” Parley hooked his thumbs in his belt. “The
prosecution only has one witness. I am guarding that witness. Ordinarily, I would just
kill you and make my job that much easier. Naturally I would have to kill everyone
in this room to make sure there were no reprisals.”
The six men meeting with Tortelli drew back as if they had discovered a hungry lion
within touching distance.
“That’s some talk.” Tortelli leaned back from his desk. One hand tried to open a
drawer without his visitor noticing.
“If your hand pulls a weapon out of that drawer, you will see how prepared I am to
back my talk up.” Parley gave him a bored look. “The only one of you likely to
survive is Slim. That’s because he is closest to the door.”
The other men realized that Parley stood between them and the exit. If something
happened, they would have to roll over him to get out of the office. And they were
between the detective and Tortelli. Bullets would fly right through them if things
went bad.
Servo was on the other side, and could slide out of the room while the other men were
fighting for their lives.
“My partner feels I should let the criminal justice system do what it will.” Parley’s
expression showed how much he thought of that idea. “He doesn’t want to have to
explain why I kill every criminal I come across. I respect that. Paperwork is a pain.
That’s why I decided to give you options so I don’t have to hear the complaints.
“The first option is you leave the city, and don’t come back. You can run your
territory from somewhere else using the Internet.”
“I’m not doing that.” Tortelli was close to pulling the weapon from his desk. Only the
prior warning held him back.
“The second option is for you to stand your trial. As long as you leave my witness
alone, you can do whatever you want to get out of a conviction. If anything were to
happen to my witness, I will be unhappy and I will come back and kill you, your
associates, your family, suppliers, anyone even connected to your businesses in any
way.”
Parley’s delivery was cold and exact. His eyes had deadened into things like brown
marbles in his face.
“What else do you got?” Tortelli planned to grab the pistol in his desk and shoot this
crazy man. No one threatened him in his own home.
“I kill you all now.” Parley flexed his wrist, loosening up his arm. “Once I start, all
of you will have to die.”
Tortelli looked at Slim. The gunman had inched closer to the door. He was two steps
away from freedom. The boss had the idea that Slim had run into this guy before and
had a fair idea of what he could do.
And what he could do was kill everyone in the room.
“Let’s say I agree to this, what do I get out of this?” Tortelli put both hands on the top
of his desk.
“You get a fair warning whenever our paths cross.” Parley didn’t smile. “I’m only
interested in murders. Everything else is yours. If you kill anyone else in my city, it
had better be more justified than he was in my way.”
“What does that even mean?” Tortelli knew what it meant and he looked at the
lieutenants in the room. They knew what it meant too from the looks on their faces.
“It means that as long as your operations don’t kill anyone, you will probably not see
me again. If they do, I expect a name so I can arrest that person.” Parley looked
around the room. “It’s the same deal I gave Swift Morgan.”
“Swift Morgan is dead.” Tortelli wished he dared take a drink from the glass of water
in front of him. “He got chopped to pieces.”
“He chose option three.” Parley smiled. “Be seeing you, partner.”
He walked from the room.
