Keep the Wolf from the Door

Chapter 29 - The Boss

29.

The Boss

            Headboard banging.

            Hand cuffs rattling.

            Natalie screaming.

            The Boss shouting his rousing lyrics through the built in speakers in the ceiling.

            James took a load off on a Monday afternoon. The place was a studio apartment on Keith Avenue in West Hollywood. He had barely enough time to release his frustrations before he was interrupted by an anxious knock at the door. "Hold on a minute," he huffed as he climbed off the bed pulling up his slacks. He was the boss, and the boss was always on the clock.

            "Hey," Natalie whined, still cuffed to the headboard.

            "Don't move."

            James opened the door to find Shanks. "Sorry to bother you, sir."

            "Talk to me."

             "He wasn't home last night sir," Shanks squeaked.

            James grabbed the remote and turned the music lower. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

            Shanks coughed, "I left a very distinct message for him,sir."

            "A message?" James grabbed the sides of Shanks' face. "Nobody has heard from him in weeks and now his cousin has disappeared, and you are doing fuck-all about it!"          

            "My men are out there looking, sir."

            "So then why haven't we found him yet, Shanks? Why have you allowed them to disappear from my grid? We talked about the grid, sergeant."

            "We did sir. And we'll find Kiryakov."

            "Kiryakov?" Natalie chimed in from the bed. Both men turned towards the dark, naked, senseless beauty attached to the bed.

            "Michael Kiryakov?"

            James' eyes bulged from his head. He removed the cuffs quickly and pulled her thin naked body from the bed like something he pulled out of a river with a stick. "Ouch."

            "You know him?"

            "Yeah, I knew him."

            "Where is he?"

            "I don't know." He tightened his grasp. "Ouch," she wiggled. "He don't answer my calls no more."

            "Ugh!" James wasn't sure what disgusted him more; sharing a mistress with that parasite or Natalie's English. "When have you spoken to him last?"

            "Dunno, four, maybe five months ago; he knocked up some burlesque dancer and he was tweakin'." James' eyes grew wide.

            "What did she look like?"

            "Uh, some busted looking thing with big dirty blonde hair."

            James looked over at Shanks. He picked Natalie's clothes up from the floor and whipped them at her. "Get out," he growled and then stalked outside.

             " I want every man out there looking for Kiryakov, Paradiso, Campbell...and anyone else who might have come along. I want his ass delivered to me, tonight!"